Exploring music performance anxiety, self-efficacy, performance quality, and behavioural anxiety within a self-modelling intervention for young musicians

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relational changes between music performance anxiety (MPA), self-efficacy, performance quality, and behavioural anxiety in five adolescent piano students over a six-week intervention. Additionally, the study explored the effects of a positive self-review self-modelling intervention on adolescent musicians. Self-report measures, performance evaluations, and behavioural anxiety ratings were used to collect data. Results indicate that the relational changes between MPA, self-efficacy, and performance quality are complex. There were no observed relationships between MPA and self-efficacy or performance, suggesting that MPA can have both debilitative and facilitate effects on these variables. Additionally, there was no relationship between MPA and behavioural anxiety, suggesting that students may appear less anxious than they feel. Finally, the results suggest that self-modelling has individual effects on musicians, meaning that self-modelling can provide teachers with a versatile strategy for reducing MPA, improving performance quality, and/or increasing performance confidence.

KEYWORDS:

• Music performance anxiety
• self-efficacy
• music performance
• self-modelling
• adolescent musicians
• behavioural anxiety

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Erin MacAfee is a doctoral candidate at the School of Human Kinetics of the University of Ottawa, and has earned degrees in Piano Pedagogy (MA) from the University of Ottawa and Music (BMus) from Brock University. Specializing in music performance anxiety, her research explores the relationships between self-efficacy and anxiety in young musicians. She has written several scholarly research papers on performance anxiety and continues to conduct research exploring ways to help reduce performance anxiety in young musicians.

Gilles Comeau is a Professor at the Music School of the University of Ottawa, co-ordinates the piano pedagogy and music education sectors. Comeau has been the beneficiary of many research grants, including a large grant from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation to set up a research laboratory in piano pedagogy (www.piano.uottawa.ca). He has written numerous scholarly papers and he conducts research on various aspects of music learning and teaching: music reading, motivation, piano-playing health injuries, musicians hearing sensitivity, transfer of motor learning, video-mediated learning.

Notes

1 Piano exams refer to exams conducted by the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) or Conservatory Canada (CC) that evaluate musical and performance proficiency