Measuring "Musical Self-Concept" Throughout the Years of Adolescence with MUSCI_youth: Validation and Adjustment of the Musical Self-Concept Inquiry (MUSCI) by Investigating Samples of Students at Secondary Education Schools

• Published in: Psychomusicology Vol. 27; no. 3; pp. 167 - 179
• Main Authors: Fiedler, Daniel, Spychiger, Maria
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Educational Publishing Foundation 01.09.2017; American Psychological Association
• Subjects: Adolescence; Adolescent Characteristics; Behavior; Female; Human; Male; Measurement; Middle School Students; Music; Music Education; Musical Ability; Quantitative psychology; Secondary Education; Self image; Self-Concept; Skills; Students; Studies; Teenagers; Test Validity; Variables; musical development; music education; secondary education; musical self-concept; validation
• ISBN: 9781433891052; 1433891050
• ISSN: 0275-3987; 2162-1535
• DOI: 10.1037/pmu0000180

The years of adolescence are significant to the individual course of musical development. Individually various trajectories are taken during this period, which may result in considerable differences between persons. The mechanisms and reasons which lead to these differences are often subject to music-related psychological and educational research. The psychometric construct musical self-concept can be used to measure musical dimensions in peoples′ life. The study presented in this paper mainly aims toward verifying the factor structure of the initial Musical Self-Concept Inquiry (MUSCI), a measuring tool for musical self-concept, in a sample of (German) students at the level of secondary education. Further aims are the respecification of the underlying factor model, as well as the validation of the renewed subfacets of the MUSCI with music-specific background variables, and the psychometric construct musical sophistication. Data of 516 students are presented, comprising musical self-concept and self-assessed musical sophistication as well as music-specific and demographic background variables. Data analyses included confirmatory factor analysis, reliability measurement, and correlational analyses. The renewed factor model shows a good fit to the data (χ2/df = 1.822; RMSEA = .040; TLI = .921; CFI = .935), and good subscale reliabilities (α = .635 to α = .828). The relationships between the renewed subfacets of the MUSCI with musical sophistication and music-specific variables have been defined to analyze concurrent validity. We conclude from these analyses that the adjusted version of the MUSCI (labeled as MUSCI_youth) can be used for measuring the musical self-concept of persons at young age.