Journal article
How American Adolescents Interpret Success and Failure in Classroom Music: Relationships among Attributional Beliefs, Self-Concept and Achievement
Psychology of music, Vol.26(1), pp.26-45
1998
DOI: 10.1177/0305735698261004
Abstract
Research involving early adolescents highlights systematic declines in motiva- tion for learning as students progress from elementary school to secondary school. Students' attributions or explanations for past achievement outcomes often are important determinants of future activity choice, investment and persistence. In this article, we critique prior music attribution research and report findings from our empirical study of American 7th-graders' attributional beliefs about success and failure in classroom music. Our results demonstrated that secondary students do not attribute success and failure to the same factors, and that many of the most salient reasons for music-related outcomes (family-, teacher- and peer-influence) are not addressed in traditional attribution research. Attributional beliefs, particularly those concerning music ability, were strongly linked to students' music self-concept and achievement test scores, and the magnitude of those linkages was typically greater when students reflected upon past failures. Based on these findings, we recommend that music practitioners increase their awareness of students' attributional beliefs (particularly the tendency to attribute failure to lack of ability and/or negative family influence), encourage students to consider the r6le that less stable and more controllable factors (effort, persistence, strategy use, metacognition) play in determining achievement outcomes, and employ instructional or evaluative strategies that promote more expansive and developmental views of music ability among all students.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- How American Adolescents Interpret Success and Failure in Classroom Music: Relationships among Attributional Beliefs, Self-Concept and Achievement
- Creators
- James R. Austin - Music Education Department, College of Music, Campus Box 301, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309-0301, U.S.AWalter P. Vispoel - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Psychology of music, Vol.26(1), pp.26-45
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- DOI
- 10.1177/0305735698261004
- ISSN
- 0305-7356
- eISSN
- 1741-3087
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 1998
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Quantitative Foundations
- Record Identifier
- 9984371074902771
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