Development and Validation of the Home Musical Environment Scale for Use at the Early Elementary Level

Abstract

This study was designed to develop and validate the Home Musical Environment Scale (HOMES), a 15-item parent sell- reporting measure to assess the home musical environment. The initial contents (content validity) of the HOMES represented a variety of aspects of parental musical attitudes and efforts in pro- viding a nurturing musical environment as identified in the litera- ture and present in available measures. After a panel of experts revised the instrument, it was tested with 157 second-grade children and their parents. The analysis revealed an alpha relia- bility of *86 and the factor analysis uncovered four factors (scales) with eigen values over 1-0, which accounted for 63 per cent of the variance. Concurrent validity was established by comparing the scores on the HOMES with the music teacher's perception of the subjects' home musical environment. Results showed that three of the four scales were significantly related to the teacher's per- ception. These results suggest that the HOMES may be used by parents to improve their home musical environments, by music teachers wishing to encourage parents of their students, and finally by researchers hoping to learn more about the musical develop- ment of children.