Every participant first performs at the regional competition. If the participants score at least 23 out of 25 possible points, they are promoted to the federal state level, at which the entire procedure is repeated.
The final and highest level is the national level. Participants at the national level of the contest are commonly regarded as highly gifted young musicians. It is at this level that our study was conducted. Therefore, we included individual aspects such as incentives, flow, and volition in our study. Additionally, our large-scale, superordinate survey sought to provide information regarding reasons for student participation in the contest and other relevant aspects, such as personality traits and performance anxiety.
About 30 years ago Bastian ; ; , follow up: Bastian and Koch, conducted several comprehensive research projects on the participants of the contest using narrative interviews and questionnaires to investigate the attitudes of the young participants toward the contest as well as their emotions and their thoughts both preparing for the contest and during their performances.
He also included opinions and statements from parents, organizers, and members of the jury. Austin compared the effects of two music contest formats rated vs. The results showed significant gains in musical self-concept for both groups, but only rated students experienced significant gains in achievement motivation scores. Gouzouasis and Henderson examined the educational, musical and social benefits and detriments that evolve from participation in a competitive band festival.
They found that personal beliefs and feedback from their directors, adjudicators, parents, and peers influenced the attitudes of students on how they perform. Furthermore, students appreciated the competitive aspects of music festivals as a motivational factor when practicing and performing and as a possibility for developing a sense of pride after accomplishing good performances.
For young participants in international pop singing competitions, higher performance quality was associated with positive emotions, low arousal and increased dominance, while lower performance quality was associated with negative emotions Rucsanda et al. However, solo contests in general seem to be more stressful for students than small ensemble or band contests, especially for females, but were perceived as having the most motivational value Howard, Expert performance is generally explained by the accumulated amount of deliberate practice Ericsson et al.
However, expertise development theories have been based on the expertise development of classical musicians, suggesting that expertise is developed over about 10 years and that formal instruction, formal practice, and parental support are crucial for expertise development. In particular, popular music practice on its prototypical instruments e. Unfortunately, it remains unknown whether musical practice ahead of the contest met all criteria of deliberate practice.
In prior studies, the role of motivation has often been grossly underestimated, despite the tremendous impact it has on both quantity and quality of practice. Thus, it should be noted that motivation constitutes a very important component of time that individuals spend practicing and rehearsing.
Motivation is an umbrella term for incentives, motives, flow, and volition. Unfortunately, the field of motivational research is rather disconnected. The present study concentrates on the models and theories by Heckhausen and contributors because they are, to our knowledge, the only ones which include all relevant aspects listed above. Incentives are motivational factors offered by a certain situation whereas motives are motivational factors within people themselves.
Incentives are defined by Heckhausen and Heckhausen , p. The more one expects their actions to positively influence the outcome of a situation, the more incentivizing it is Rheinberg, For highly developed motives, only little incentivization is needed to foster motive-related actions Roth, While incentives can be regarded as activity-based or outcome-based, a combination of both is common among creative and artistic activities Roth, Roth , , was the first to systematically study the incentives for musical practice.
Evans utilized the SDT-approach to motivation in music education in order to unify the various theoretical approaches used in music education in an umbrella approach. He also provided an overview of music motivation studies, which support this meta-theory. The Motivation and Engagement Wheel Martin et al.
It was found that intrinsic motivation increases with level of music activity, with professional musicians scoring higher than amateurs. Furthermore, females have more intrinsic motivation than males Appelgren et al. Flow has been demonstrated to increase with age.
Furthermore, a negative correlation between flow and musical performance anxiety was determined Cohen and Bodner, Consequently, it is surprising that no correlation between gender and flow was found, as there is a gender effect with regard to musical performance anxiety ibd. It has been shown that experiencing flow is vital to ensuring continued interest and participation in musical activities Lamont, Therefore, it is not unexpected that flow has been found to be positively correlated with the total amount of practice time Butkovic et al.
Furthermore, flow experiences seem to be facilitated by trait emotional intelligence, specific structural and compositional features of musical pieces as well as related emotional expressions Marin and Bhattacharya, A relationship between personality and the ability to experience flow was also established for amateur singers with extraversion correlating positively with flow experiences, while neuroticism exhibited a negative correlation with flow experiences Heller et al.
Apart from incentives and aspects of flow, volitional factors are also of great importance regarding the practicing behavior of the participants.
Volition describes aspects of will that can be helpful in maintaining certain actions and behavior even if inner resistance is present or motivation is low Sokolowski, As opposed to actions which are propelled by high motivation, actions that involve a great amount of volition are perceived as exhausting. People experience less fun during their actions and time seems to pass very slowly Roth and Sokolowski, Up until today, volition has mostly been investigated in the area of psychology and implemented in general models of action and behavior Heckhausen and Gollwitzer, ; Heckhausen and Heckhausen, Research on volition during the practice of a musical instrument has been scarce.
Volition has been investigated in combination with motivation and the maturing process, showing an influence of motivation and volition on the practicing methods Harnischmacher, During practice, volitional components and strategies seem to help in maintaining the practice process even if one does not want to practice Roth, There has been research on the connection between flow and volition, stating that flow can occur even if one practices with reluctance.
This can be explained by either a transition from a volitional to a motivational mindset during practice Roth and Sokolowski, or the automatic occurrence of volitional processes during a period of high motivation Kehr, As stated above, motivation with its components incentives, flow, and volition has rarely been investigated in the context of music competitions. Hence, this paper attempts to enrich the state of research in this regard. Another goal of this research project is the further exploration of the role of music and the contest itself in the lives of the participants.
Additionally, updating and expanding on earlier findings is also an important aim. The superordinate as well as this specific part of the study are explorative in nature, as most of the prior studies were qualitative a notable exception being Mund, and did not rely on established standardized testing methods.
Although the different aspects of this study have been examined individually before, this large-scale study is the first one, at least to our knowledge, to combine all these aspects into one study. Clearly, this is advantageous as all aspects were examined using the same testing methods and sample, allowing for higher levels of comparability of results regarding the different aspects examined.
Therefore, we will investigate. Whether and how participants of different contest categories differ concerning their amount of practice,.
Whether and how participants of different contest categories differ concerning incentive and volition factors as well as factors of flow as reasons to participate in the contest, and.
Whether it is possible to establish a typology by comparing classical solo players, classical ensemble players, and pop solo players. That year, 20, adolescents participated at the regional level, 8, at the federal state level, and 2, at the national level, which means that a little more than 10 percent of all participants made it to the national level.
These are the official numbers that include double participation of musicians in different categories of the contest. In our survey, we used a standardized paper-pencil questionnaire 17 pages including some open questions, which were distributed to approximately 2, participants in person.
Existing standardized instruments and items were integrated into our questionnaire: items concerning the incentives for participation in the contest Bullerjahn et al. Some items were considered to offer little additional information; for example, it was decided to exclude an item that asked whether participants wanted to score higher than most others, as compared to an item asking about whether winning a prize was important to the participant. For the incentive measurement, the aim was always to include at least two items that expressed possible hopes and two that expressed possible fears of the contestants and this concerning every need.
This was achieved by covering a broad variety of aspects in one questionnaire. There were no gender differences regarding the age distribution. Participants were unevenly distributed across the different contest categories. Accompanists made up 2 percent of the sample.
Table 1 shows selected descriptive statistics about the sociodemography of the participants in each of the three contest categories.
Whereas the classical categories showed a higher number of female participants, the number of male contestants in the pop solo categories surpassed the number of females by far.
Concerning the occupation of the contestants, there were only small differences between the groups. Across all groups, most of the participants showed a high level of education. Students received musical education concerning their musical instrument or voice respectively in a variety of contexts. Although VdM music schools are not part of the public education system, these music schools teach according to standardized curricula, whose organization roughly aligns with the general education system.
The VdM does not view its music schools as child care centers. Rather, they consider themselves educational institutions. Their focus is on both continuity and care. Another 10 percent reported having more than one teacher; only 0. It is intriguing that participants of both classical categories were trained by private teachers or college professors more often than pop solo participants.
However, the largest share of participants across all contest categories were taught in music schools. For all categories, except for classical solo, this share was larger than 50 percent cf. Table 1. Although more than half of the participants of all contest categories stated they did not have an immigration background, the classical solo contestants, when compared to the other two groups, included a large number of contestants whose parents immigrated to Germany.
In all three categories, most of the participants stated coming from a small town or village. It is also noteworthy that fewer parents of pop solo contestants worked in a music related profession, when compared to the two classical categories cf. Data visualizations were created using Python 3. Explorative principal component analyses were computed so that our scope was not limited to looking at single items but also included latent variables.
In order to answer the research questions, we mainly used analyses of variance. Correlations were computed to test for coherences between the newly built scales. Furthermore, a linear discriminant analysis LDA was conducted, so differences between participants in the three contest categories could be investigated further.
We asked the participants about their regular daily practice time, as well as the number of days per week they usually practice. Figure 1. The small differences between regular practice time and practice time in preparation for the contest may be explained by two contrary strategies: 48 percent of the participants increase their practicing efforts before the contest, while 35 percent reduce it.
One possible explanation for this phenomenon could be that, since participants play the same pieces at the different stages of the contest, it may not appear necessary to increase practice time for the national level contest because they are already capable of playing their pieces very well.
There were no significant differences between male and female participants. However, major differences can be identified between participants of the classical solo contest category compared to the pop solo and the ensemble contest category: Participants in the classical solo contest category usually practiced about 9 h per week, and, therefore, significantly more than participants of other contest categories, who averaged about 6 h weekly Welch-ANOVA F [2, Figure 2.
Mean regular weekly amount of practice by contest category. Error bars indicate 0. Age also has a significant influence on the amount of weekly practice: while there is no correlation between the age of the participants and the time spent practicing while explicitly preparing for the contest, regular practice time correlates with age. It is not surprising that, generally, it are the oldest participants who spend the most hours practicing. However, the remarkably high standard deviations indicate that there are some musicians, even among the highest age cohort, who usually spend relatively little time practicing Welch-ANOVA F [3, In particular, this holds true for participants in the classical solo contest.
In any case, we can observe considerable inter-individual differences in practice time cf. Table 2. The threshold was set at 8 h per week. Table 2 shows differences concerning practice-related variables for different contest categories, age groups, and genders. Regarding the number of contestants who stated a high amount of practice, huge differences between the contest categories could be established.
Whereas about 40 percent of participants in the classical solo contest practiced more than 8 h per week, only about one fifth of the contestants reported this amount of practice in the pop solo category. In addition, the amount of practice rose with increasing age. The older the participants, the more they practiced. Also, most of the participants showed a positive attitude toward practicing in general and excelling on their instrument. However, only the minority of the participants got parental supervision in form of being prompted to practice regularly and receiving help when experiencing practice difficulties.
Interestingly enough, young musicians prompted to practice by their parents do not show a significantly higher amount of time spent practicing. Parental support and supervision correlate negatively with age, showing that older participants received less support and experienced less supervision by their parents. Additionally, contestants in the classical ensemble category seem to have a slightly less positive attitude toward practicing than the other two groups.
Across all these practice related variables, no gender differences could be found. There were no major differences between the contest categories cf. After the survey, we conducted factor analyses to assure the construct validity of our scales. Furthermore, we calculated correlations with the personality factors of the BFI that confirmed the criterion validity of our instrument. Only four items, each representing the basic psychological needs, were used in this study.
However, in the end only two factors could be interpreted as internally consistent constructs. Table 3. We only utilized nine items from the Flow Short Scale by Rheinberg et al. Table 4. Table 5. Unfortunately, we were unable to test our instrument beforehand due to time constraints. Figure 3. The respective dependent variable is named in the text.
Preparation for the creative economy: Investing in creative education can prepare students for the 21st century workforce. The new economy has created more artistic careers, and these jobs may grow faster than others in the future. Development in creative thinking: Kids who study the arts can learn to think creatively. This kind of education can help them solve problems by thinking outside the box and realizing that there may be more than one right answer. Music can develop spatial intelligence: Students who study music can improve the development of spatial intelligence, which allows them to perceive the world accurately and form mental pictures.
Spatial intelligence is helpful for advanced mathematics and more. Kids can learn teamwork: Many musical education programs require teamwork as part of a band or orchestra. In these groups, students will learn how to work together and build camaraderie. Responsible risk-taking: Performing a musical piece can bring fear and anxiety.
Doing so teaches kids how to take risks and deal with fear, which will help them become successful and reach their potential.
Better self-confidence: With encouragement from teachers and parents, students playing a musical instrument can build pride and confidence. Musical education is also likely to develop better communication for students.
Did this blog spur new ideas for your music program? Share them on Amplify! Interested in reprinting this article? Please review the reprint guidelines. The National Association for Music Education NAfME provides a number of forums for the sharing of information and opinion, including blogs and postings on our website, articles and columns in our magazines and journals, and postings to our Amplify member portal.
Unless specifically noted, the views expressed in these media do not necessarily represent the policy or views of the Association, its officers, or its employees. Christopher M. Music and other art programs help to increase your child's imagination and the confidence needed to make decisions on his or her own.
Your child needs more than the basics to be successful. A full and productive life also requires social skills, discipline, cooperation, and creative thinking. These are all learned from the training that sports and music programs offer. And there is one more benefit of sports and music. They can really be fun, not just for your child, but also for the whole family. Search Encyclopedia.
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