Attributional Theory in investigating public music performance in higher music education

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to investigate the causes attributed by undergraduate music students to situations of failure and success in public music performance. Attributional Theory has been used in this research as the theoretical framework to understand how situations of success and failure are interpreted by the person of the activity. The analysis was conducted from an Intrapersonal perspective of motivation, i.e., how the attributions made by the students doing an undergraduate course in music revealed their notions and beliefs. The methodology used included a non-probabilistic survey and the data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire involving 130 undergraduate music students of southern Brazil. The results show that in situations considered to be successful, the most frequent attributed causes are effort (77.7%), persistence (65.4%), and interest in the performance (63.1%), whereas in situations considered to be failures the most important aspects are emotional (60.8%), difficulty of the task (36.2%), and lack of effort (30.8%). This research shows that students who have more musical experience regard their performances as good or excellent, whereas those that have little experience do not view themselves in this way. The data reveal that the greater the importance that is attached to an activity, the more time is spent on preparing for it; in the same way students tend to be more engaged with musical activities and devote more time to them when they are aware of their skills and value them. Music students feel responsible for their results, which shows that they are engaged in their learning and seek to satisfy an inner need to achieve success.