Research Projects as PI
The Politics of Care in the Professional Education of Children Gifted for Music
Funder: The Scientific Council for Culture and Society, Research Council of Finland (Ref. 348591) | Dates: 2022–2027
This Academy Research Fellowship examines how children gifted for music can be supported to thrive as agentic, healthy individuals beyond and besides performance excellence. Drawing on a politics-of-care framework and systems thinking, it investigates the shared responsibilities of families, teachers, specialist music institutions, and the music industry across multiple global contexts. Through a series of interrelated substudies — combining scoping reviews, empirical research, and transdisciplinary collaboration — it develops care-based frameworks that centre children’s holistic well-being at every level of their musical development. More info: https://www.uniarts.fi/en/projects/caring-for-musically-gifted-children/
Expanding Reflexivity of Professional Education in Music in Times of Crises
Funder: Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation | Dates: 2022
This Senior Research project used the COVID-19 pandemic as a critical lens to examine how higher music education can be reconstructed to better prepare music professionals for uncertainty and crises. Through multidisciplinary, multi-method research — including studies on musicians’ practice, motivation, remote teaching, and the cultural politics of music-making during lockdown — it generated evidence-based recommendations for more reflexive and resilient HME pedagogy, curriculum, and policy. More info: https://www.uniarts.fi/en/projects/expanding-reflexivity-of-professional-education-in-music-in-times-of-crises/
Transforming Musicianship: Developing Musicians’ Learner Identity Through Multidisciplinary Pedagogy
Funder: Academy of Finland (Ref. 315378)| Dates: 2018–2021
This Postdoctoral Research project investigated how professional and advanced musicians in higher music education develop and transform their identity as learners. Through multiple methods — including questionnaires, reflexive diaries, interviews, and naturalistic observation of concerts and rehearsals — it examined how learning practices, self-perception, and career thinking evolve across different educational contexts. The findings contribute to rethinking pedagogy in higher music education, fostering more agentic, self-directed, and reflective musicians. More info: https://www.uniarts.fi/en/projects/transforming-musicianship-musicians-learner-identity/
Autoethnography of a Period Cellist: Performance Psychology and Technical Aesthetics in the Variation Works by Beethoven and Mendelssohn
Funder: Kone Foundation | Dates: 2016–2018
This Postdoctoral Research project combined artistic practice and scholarly inquiry in an autoethnographic study of the researcher’s own life as a cellist. Drawing on personal narratives, reflexive diaries, concert recordings, and experimental performance sessions, it traced “epiphanies” — transformative moments of motivation and emotion across a musician’s life history. The project produced both peer-reviewed publications and artistic outputs, including a recording, and contributed new frameworks for understanding how professional musicians self-regulate their practice, manage performance emotions, and construct their artistic identity over time.
Conceptions and Instructional Practices of String Instrument Teachers: Influence on the Conceptions and Levels of Musical Comprehension of their Students
Funder: FPU Scholarships, Madrid Autonomous University | Dates: 2009–2013
This Doctoral Research project was groundbreaking in the field of conceptual change, challenging dominant expertise research from other disciplines and overturning outdated understandings of musical learning in music education research. It demonstrated how teachers’ conceptions shape students’ instrumental music learning and understanding of pedagogy. Integrating evidence from multiple studies, it showed that constructivist, student-centred teaching fosters autonomy, reflection, intrinsic motivation, and deeper musical understanding, whereas traditional approaches promote reproduction and dependence on external reinforcement and feedback. The findings advocate transforming teachers’ beliefs and practices as the foundation for meaningful educational change.
Research Projects as Affiliated Researcher & Advisor
No project logo available at this time
EmCello — Conveying Embodied Knowledge: Pablo Casals’ Cello Master Classes
Funder: Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) | Dates: 2027–2031
As External Advisor to this project comprising nearly 30 researchers, my expertise in teacher-student dynamics and the transmission of knowledge in music education informs its interdisciplinary approach. EmCello investigates how technical, artistic, and creative knowledge is conveyed in musical contexts, taking as its general case study the master classes that cellist Pablo Casals gave at various international venues. These classes are examined from multiple perspectives — musical, pedagogical, historical, technological, philosophical, and human — to shed light on the complex processes through which embodied musical knowledge is transmitted from teacher to student. PI: A. Llorens.
REACT — Rethinking Music Performance in Higher Education
Funder: Erasmus+ | Dates: 2020–2023
This Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project addressed a persistent problem in higher music education: that musicians are trained to acquire technical, read-only skills rather than to become creative, reflexive professionals. REACT developed and tested the Artistic Research-Based Learning (AR-BL) model — an innovative pedagogical framework that shifts the focus from technical skill acquisition to material thinking, fostering students’ creativity, critical self-reflection, and broader societal reflexivity. Through an international cooperative network of higher education institutions across Europe, the project produced training materials, toolkits, a virtual academy, and evidence-based recommendations for transforming music performance pedagogy. As a consortium member, my contributions included active participation in research processes and outputs across the partnership. PI: J. Salgado-Correia. More info: react.web.ua.pt
ArtsEqual: Arts as Public Service — Towards an Equitable Finnish Arts Education System
Funder: Academy of Finland (Strategic Research Council) | Dates: 2015–2021
This Academy of Finland Strategic Research Council project examined the role of arts education as a public service in Finland, with the aim of developing a more equitable and accessible arts education system. Organised across six research groups, ArtsEqual investigated how arts education can serve diverse populations — including minoritized, marginalized, and excluded groups — across all life stages and institutional contexts. As a postdoctoral affiliated researcher in the Basic Arts Education for All subgroup, my contributions included workshops for the entire research team (over 80 researchers) on academic publishing and internationalisation, as well as specialist expertise on music school research — particularly on socio-cognitive constructivism and its applications in instrumental music education. PI: H. Westerlund. More info: artsequal.fi
No project logo available at this time
Conceptions and Uses of External Representations in Teaching and Learning
Funder: I+D+i Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness | Dates: 2015–2017
This research project examined how students and teachers conceive of and use external representational systems — such as musical notation, diagrams, maps, and symbolic tools — as mediators of learning in different educational contexts. As a doctoral research affiliate, I contributed to empirical data collection and analysis within a constructivist framework investigating how implicit theories shape the interpretation and use of sheet music and musical notation. PI: J. I. Pozo.
No project logo available at this time
Learning of External Representational Systems and Representational Change in Different Knowledge Domains
Funder: I+D+i Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology | Dates: 2010–2013
This research project investigated how learners acquire and transform their understanding of external representational systems across different knowledge domains — including music, science, museums, or mathematics. Drawing on implicit theories of representational and conceptual change, the project explored the cognitive and instructional conditions that support the transition from surface-level use to deeper, domain-specific representational competence. As a doctoral research affiliate, I contributed to data collection, analysis, and the development of instructional materials related to instrumental music education settings within this research programme. PI: M-P. Pérez-Echeverría.
No project logo available at this time
Instruction for Representational Change: From Implicit Theories to Knowledge Learning in Different Educational Settings
Funder: I+D+i Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology | Dates: 2008–2010
This research project investigated how instructional interventions can promote conceptual change by addressing learners’ implicit theories — deeply held intuitive beliefs that often resist formal teaching. Working across multiple educational settings, the project examined conditions under which learners move from implicit, experience-based knowledge to more explicit, elaborated understanding. As a doctoral research affiliate, I contributed to data collection, analysis, and the development of instructional materials grounded in a constructivist approach to representational and conceptual change. PI: M-P. Pérez-Echeverría.
Guadalupe López-Íñiguez, PhD, MMus 