Investigating Social Processes in Group Musical Composition

Abstract

In recent years, the benefits of social interaction have been recognised in learning and working environments, the impact of social support on individual confidence and creativity being widely reported. In many domains including music, ability, personality, gender and friendship relationships have been identified as influencing the success or failure of group interactions. Despite the assumption in educational practice that group work can improve individuals' performance, however, social facilitation literature indicates the presence of others can sometimes be a hindrance (Hunt & Hillery, 1973). The main aim of the current paper is to investigate how various groupings of individuals (here, children) influenced creative musical tasks. In particular, friendship as opposed to random, single and both male and female sex groups were contrasted. It was hypothesised that quality of musical outcome would be influenced to some degree by the standard of social interaction and thus impact on individual sense of self within the task context. Fifty-nine children aged 11 participated in the study. All sessions were video-recorded. A researcher and class teachers observed the children's musical interactions using a check-list and a detailed structured questionnaire to guide observations whilst the children worked in groups of six participants in the following configurations: Randomly assigned, friendship based single and both sex, non-friendship based single and both sex. In each context, the children completed a compositional task, which was then assessed by independent, experienced assessors. The children were all individually questioned post-task about their experiences. The results suggested that social grouping did not influence the standard of the creative product, but it did affect the children's social interaction and thus their personal sense of achievement and enjoyment on task.