Measuring critical musicality

ABSTRACT

This study focused on the development and psychometric evaluation of the 16-item Critical Musicality Scale (CMS). The participants in the study comprised (N = 118) secondary students (mostly 13 to14 years old) from Singapore. Four factors of critical musicality were hypothesised and empirically tested. The full sample was used to conduct an exploratory factor analysis which affirmed the hypothesised factor structure of CMS. Close to 85% of the full sample was randomly selected (n = 93) and associated data set was used to conduct confirmatory factor analysis. The four-factor structure of the items making up CMS was found to have a better fit to the data compared to the one-factor and three-factor models. The final four-factor model was found to be invariant across gender and was able to explain about 51% to 74% of the variance in the data. The reliability of each factor of critical musicality was found to be satisfactory. As additional evidence for the construct validity of the scale, it was found that all of the dimensions of critical musicality had significant positive correlations with the students’ behavioural and emotional engagement in music learning activities.

KEYWORDS:

• Music appreciation
• critical musicality
• student engagement
• informal learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Pamela Costes-Onishi received her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Washington (Seattle). Her research interests include aesthetics education, community arts, Southeast Asian music and diversity in education. She is currently leading studies on Instructional Core in performative subjects such as the arts, PE and computer applications. Pamela is a Research Scientist at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University.

Dr. Imelda S. Caleon received her Ph.D. from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. She is currently a Research Scientist at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, National Institute of Education, NTU. Her main research interests include the areas of positive education and science education. She is currently conducting studies on school resilience of young adolescents and the application and evaluation of positive psychology interventions, including those involving group music making, in school setting.

Notes

1 It should be noted that Green (2008) applied informal learning based on popular music to other musical contexts (i.e. classical music) and have reported findings of its effectiveness.

2 Depending on the results of their Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) given at the end of primary education, secondary students in Singapore are placed in one of these curriculum strands: Express, Normal (Academic), or Normal (Technical). The placement is meant to match the learning abilities of the students. Both Express and Normal courses are 4-year programmes with the former leading to the GCE ‘O’ levels and the latter to the GCE ‘N’ levels national examinations. Those who are in the Normal-Academic course, depending on their class performance, can opt to take a fifth year and sit for the GCE ‘O’ levels. Students in the Normal courses may also be laterally transferred to other courses, depending on their academic performance, during their second or third year in secondary school.

3 The authors are currently working on another paper that focuses on the qualitative findings of the study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Educational Research Funding Programme (ERFP) of the Office of Education Research (OER), National Institute of Education, Singapore: [Grant Number OER 01/14 OP].