Anxiety and piano exams: Turkish prospective music teachers’ experiences

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to determine the test anxiety levels of prospective music teachers and their opinions regarding anxiety in piano exams. Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) and semi-structured interviews were used to meet the purpose. Interviews were conducted with students prior to and after the piano exam. As a result of the study it was determined that female students were more anxious compared to male students, fourth-year students were the most anxious class, and students who have graduated from fine arts high schools had lower anxiety levels. There was no significant relation between piano course achievement scores and test anxiety. Both of the interviews and TAI scores supported these results. The results were discussed and compared with other studies in the literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Music education
• piano education
• test anxiety

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Elif Güven is an assistant professor of Music Education in the Department of Music Education at Balikesir University, Turkey.