What makes a Child Musical? Conceptions of Musical Ability in Childhood

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Methods, History, Theory

Abstract

Common musicality tests for children often have a strong focus on measuring aural skills (Hallam, 2006). However, "musicality" is not assumed to be a natural and uniform trait, but a social construct with different meanings in different cultures, subgroups, and even individuals (Blacking, 1971; Hallam & Prince, 2003). It has been shown that everyday conceptions of adult musicality are highly complex and comprise far more facets (e.g. motivational factors) as normally included in test procedures (Hallam, 2010; Hallam & Prince, 2003). For childhood, there are indications that musicality conceptions are similarly complex (Haroutounian, 2000), but this has not been empirically investigated so far.
The aim of this study was to investigate which skills are seen as the most important indicators of musicality in kindergarten age in a Western culture. To this end, we created a questionnaire in which participants rated statements on musical behaviors of 3- to 6-year-old children. These statements were taken from a survey by Hallam and Prince (2003) on musicality in adulthood and adapted for kindergarten age.
Adults with different musical backgrounds (N=922) who regularly spend time with children (180 early childhood educators, 167 musicians/music educators, 551 parents) completed the survey. The participants were predominantly female (n = 714) and between 18 and 75 years of age (M = 41.98, SD = 9.36). On a 5-point Likert scale, they assessed 49 items on musical behavior according to their probability of occurrence in children with strong musical abilities.
Across all participants, enthusiasm, interest and motivation were seen as the most important features of child musicality (indicated by the seven items with the highest mean ratings; M = 3.80 – 4.07). To investigate whether musical ability in childhood can be divided into distinct subskills, we compared three different PCA models and one hierarchical cluster model and applied confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate the model-data fit. The best fit to the data according to the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) was achieved by a 4-component PCA model identified through parallel analysis. It explained 50% of the item variance. Relative as well as absolute fit indices for the 4-component PCA were also in an acceptable to good range. Interpretation of the four components revealed the following facets of musical ability in childhood: musical communication (M = 3.38, SD = .64), enthusiasm and motivation (M = 3.86, SD = .58), analytical understanding (M = 3.43, SD = .70), and musical abilities in the narrower sense (M = 3.55, SD = .62).
Although abilities traditionally assessed by psychometric tests were thus part of the conceptions (in the component “musical abilities”), the component “enthusiasm and motivation” was considered as even more important to child musicality by the survey participants. This suggests that motivational factors are a key component of childhood musicality, with important implications for music education: It makes fostering enthusiasm and interest in music a central goal of educational efforts.

Authors

• Verena Buren, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics
  Presenting Author

• Daniel Müllensiefen, Goldsmiths, University of London
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tina Roeske, Max Planck Institute for empirical Aesthetics
  Non-Presenting Author

• Franziska Degé, University of Giessen
  Non-Presenting Author