Many university music and theatre programs use group voice classes to train students of various majors (musical theatre, voice performance, music education, music therapy). Studies in other fields have examined the effects of both small and large group instruction on learning outcomes and found that group instruction facilitated both direct and indirect learning, helped foster a supportive learning environment, and elicited more student engagement and peer-to-peer feedback (e.g., Cho et al., 2016). Therefore, one might conjecture that group voice classes could be used to effectively supplement one-to-one voice lessons. Few studies in voice pedagogy have examined the effects of group voice training on voice performance outcomes; however, Clayne Robison, professor emeritus at Brigham Young University, found group voice instruction led to a ten-fold increase in faculty teaching efficiency, as group voice instruction was more effective (students improved three times faster than those enrolled only in private instruction) and more efficient in terms of faculty teaching load.

The effectiveness and efficiency of group voice instruction will naturally depend on the teaching methods employed. The purpose of this collective case study was to explore the effects of various group voice instructional methods on student learning, engagement, and singing voice skill acquisition outcomes in university settings (N = 2) differing in terms of geography (Sweden and the USA) and primary singing style (classical and musical theatre). Results will be discussed in terms of the most effective teaching strategies for group voice instruction, potential differences in group teaching methodology informed by geography and primary singing style, and how these findings might impact the design of university program voice curricula in the future.