Music performance anxiety among students of the academy in Lithuania

ABSTRACT

Music performance anxiety (MPA) affects amateurs, students and professional musicians. We aimed to analyse MPA among students of music performance in a higher education academy in Lithuania. A sample of 258 music performance arts students of the Lithuanian Music and Theatre Academy participated in this study. The Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory (K-MPAI) was used for assessment of MPA. High MPA was associated with less concert activity, poorer perceived performance self-efficacy, and lower academic achievement grades. We did not find gender effects on MPA. Results revealed that 20.2% of the students reported difficulties in coping with MPA. Our findings inform music educators about the need to address MPA and coping with MPA in the process of teaching.

KEYWORDS:

• Stress
• music performance anxiety
• students
• music
• Lithuania

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Vilma Paliaukiene, M.Sc., graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre with a B.A. degree in musicology prior to her clinical psychology studies at Vilnius University, Lithuania. Her main research interests include music performance anxiety research. She is currently a clinical psychologist in private practice in Vilnius.

Evaldas Kazlauskas, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and associate professor at Vilnius University, Lithuania. His research is primarily focused on stress-related disorders and coping. Dr. Kazlauskas is currently involved in intervention for post-traumatic stress and adjustment disorder research. He is interested in how social factors contribute to recovery from stress-related disorders.

Jonas Eimontas, M.Sc., is a Ph.D. student and research assistant at Vilnius University, Department of Clinical and Organisational Psychology in Lithuania. His research interests include development of internet-based stress-management programmes and the evaluation of the effectiveness of stress-management programmes.

Monika Skeryte-Kazlauskiene, Ph.D., is a psychologist from Vilnius, Lithuania. She is particularly interested in developmental and educational psychology. Dr. Skeryte-Kazlauskiene is currently a researcher in the Play laboratory at the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, and is a lecturer at the Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology. She is also a founder and the Head of the Centre of Child Psychology in Vilnius.

ORCID

Evaldas Kazlauskas http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6654-6220