ABSTRACT

Use of breath, close physical proximity, and tactile cues are some of the unique facets of dance training. In March of 2020, as COVID-19 lockdowns occurred, these aspects were removed from the lexicon of dance educators as virtual learning took the place of in-person training. This data-driven project explores the benefits and challenges of virtual dance, examining whether online dance can acutely improve mental health and enhance social connectivity. We explore our findings from an education perspective, focusing on learning style, class experience, and dance history. Our findings suggest that online dance can improve mood and increase community connectedness in healthy adults. Importantly, we found that an individual’s trait learning style can influence the effectiveness of online learning, with tactile learners benefitting the most in terms of mood state and visual learners benefitting the most in terms of social connectivity. Additionally, we found that greater levels of experienced enjoyment provided the greatest benefits to mood state, whereas greater levels of perceived difficulty may have detrimental effects. We suggest best practices for online dance learning, provide future areas of research, and highlight the importance of using online learning to increase dance accessibility to diverse populations.

摘要

使用呼吸、身体接近和触觉提示是舞蹈训练的一些独特方面。2020 年 3 月，随着 COVID-19 封锁的发生，这些方面从舞蹈教育者的词汇中被删除，因为虚拟学习取代了面对面的培训。这个数据驱动的项目探讨了虚拟舞蹈的好处和挑战，研究在线舞蹈是否可以显着改善心理健康并增强社会联系。我们从教育的角度探索我们的发现，重点关注学习方式、课堂体验和舞蹈历史。我们的研究结果表明，在线舞蹈可以改善健康成年人的情绪并增加社区联系。重要的是，我们发现个人的学习风格会影响在线学习的有效性，触觉学习者在情绪状态方面受益最多，视觉学习者在社交联系方面受益最多。此外，我们发现更高水平的体验享受为情绪状态提供了最大的好处，而更高水平的感知困难可能会产生不利影响。我们建议在线舞蹈学习的最佳实践，提供未来的研究领域，并强调使用在线学习来增加对不同人群的舞蹈可及性的重要性。