European Scientific Journal ISSN: 1857 - 7881 (Print) e - ISSN 1857- 7431
The Validity and Reliability of the Musical Performance Anxiety Scale
Sadullah Serkan ŞEKER, (Dr.)
Adnan Menderes University, AYDİN
NOTE: Non-English letters in names and affiliation are not allowed, except for papers in Spanish and French.
Abstract:
Musical performance anxiety is specific sub-dimension of social phobia. Especially in music teacher training process, mpa should be analyzed and solved. The purpose of this study is developing valid and reliable measuring tool in order to assess mpa. İn developing Process literature had been searched and item pool was created for content validity. Pilot study was done and after pilot study validity and reliability studies were done. For construct validity, explanatory factor analysis was performed (n=574) three factors were determined. Confirmatory factor analysis done (n=285) for assess for fitness of factors. The results of Cfa is x2(n=285) = 225,45, df=132, p<0.001, x2/df = 1.70, RMSEA = 0,050 and cronbach alpha coefficient is .83 for whole scale. Test –retest (n=60) and convergent validity is performed. in the light of this findings it is said that valid and reliable scale were developed.
Key Words: (Musical performance Anxiety, Music Education)
Introduction:
Anxiety, can be defined as a state of fear which occurs under a threatening or stressful situation. Anxiety is a state that comprises with body's and mind's perception of real or imaginary threat or danger situation (France & Robson, 1997). Eysenck, Santos, Derakshan and Calvo (2007), is state anxiety as undesirable motivational situation, and emphasize that a state which individuals can be conceptualize anxiety when they are unable to show rıght behavior pattern to remove or change a threatening case or object Barlow defines anxiety as a cognitive-affective construct which is unique and competable each other in our defensive motivational system, and emphasize that there are some threats, cases at the center of this system which are uncontrollable and potentially negative (Barbeau, 2011). The reason of anxiety is the situation which is not familiar for individual’s oneself, negative outcome expectations, internal contradictions and uncertainty (Cüceloğlu,2000).
Anxiety is examined in two subsections which are state and trait. This kınd of anxiety first emerged in Cattel and Scherer’s factor analysis (1958;1961) and state anxiety is defined as temporary affective state which is characterized subjective stress and fears, trait anxiety is defined as intensive and form of state anxiety which shows individuals tendency towards anxiety relatively (Büyüköztürk,1997).
Performance anxiety which is subsection of social anxiety (Bogels et al., 2010) can be defined as cognitive activities that suddenly emerged in one’s mind (thoughts and images) which is related to potential catastrophes that may occur trigged by arousal and distress. This situation is actually caused to falling below one’s cognitive and physical ability (Engelhard et al, 2012). Gorges and colleagues, 2007, İn their 142 person research including professionals and students found high correlation between social anxiety and musical performance anxiety (r=.50, p< 0,001). In their research, Cox and Kenardy, (1993) which explain that mpa is a situational part of social phobia, they emphasized that the half of the study group is social phobic. Another definition of performance anxiety stated by Kenny (2006) is general name of a set of disorder which is affect one’s efforts that involve performance like sport, dance, making a speech in the presence of audience. İn some researches, performance anxiety is named as stage fright, and state that with the merger of fear and anxiety as a stage fright it become highly maladaptive and this situation forces many people to give up many activities which are necessary for their career or many activities they used to enjoy in their lives Marye (2011).
Performance anxiety is a general experience which is triggered by extreme mental and physical disturbance and affects individuals who show performance like speaker, actor/actress, musician and dancer. This problem can be seen in different individuals in different levels from professionals to amateurs (Tokinan, 2013). Dinkgrafe and colleagues (2012) emphasize that especially in arts and sports many well-known artist and athlete are exposed to performance anxiety. A well-known singer and actress Barbara Streisand in her concert in 1963 forgot the lyrics and she has not taken to the stage for 27 years. Andrea Bocelli, Al Pacino and Colin Firth are known their performance anxiety experiences. Marye (2011) is stated that teachers are also exposed to performance anxiety because teacher themselves often interacting other people in class of out of class. İn Turkey, especially music teachers are in the limelight. İn Official ceremonies music teachers are evaluated by audience, other teachers and senior officials.
Musical performance anxiety is a kind of anxiety disorder and it can be qualified as social phobia in certain cases which the performer show important corruption symptoms and this symptoms match the DMS-IV’s social phobia criteria (Kenny, 2006). İn a similar, Osborne and Franklin (2002) emphasize that the literature of social phobia defines musical performance anxiety as a specific subsection of a performance. Social phobia is a fundamental determiner of performance anxiety in solo performance settings. On the other hand, İt is stated that, in spite of the fact that there may be a link between performance anxiety and social phobia, the definition of performance anxiety does not fit the social phobia which is defined by DMS - IV. Actually in recent years, the revised version of DMS - IV and DMS - IV tr (text revision) show that the term of performance anxiety is shortly defined. According to this, in the section of DMS - IV and DMS - IV tr "the different diagnosis of social phobia", it is advised that performance anxiety, stage fright and feeling of shyness which occurs in particular social conditions full of unknown peoples is common situations and unless aforementioned anxiety or avoidance causes disorders at the clinical level or causes distress and sorrow, the diagnosis of social phobia should not place (Barbeau, 2011).
When focus on the musical performance literature researchers have tend to constitute different theories for drawing a framework for explaining musical performance anxiety. LeBlanc (1994) propound a theory that emphasizes variables that may affect one’s musical performance anxiety level that pays importance for his/her performance in the future. According to this theory, Le Blanc numerated these variables hierarchically. İn this order, Le Blanc indicate “the performance assessment” (assessments about quality of performances which is given after performance) as most important variable which may affect the level of musical performance anxiety level. Secondly, Le Blanc indicates current assessments about performance, later he specify other variables which are “the act of performance”, “the level of psychological arousal”, “self-perceptions of performer” (perceived difficulty of music, the appropriateness of music, the amount of preparaness towards performance, self- perceptions of one’s his/her own appearance, the amount of feeling exposure at the stage, the degree of importance that one give his/her performance and the perception towards support taken from audience), performance environment ( the existence of microphone or other recording devices at the stage and procedures, physical condition of stages, the kind of audience, memory requirements, distracting factors and performance time), preparaness of performance, one’s emotional and physical condition, the qualification status of one’s his/her musical instrument, personal characteristics and learning history (age, musical ability, performance experiences and qualities in the past and one’s daily life style). Other research which gives important contributions for mpa literature is Kenny’s musical performance inventory “KMPAI” (Kenny & Osborne, 2006). This inventory which is translated in to Turkish by Tokinan (2013), is developed for testing Barlow’s emotionally-based theory. İn 2009 inventory was revised by researchers herself. İts numbers of items are raised from 26 to 40. The exploratory factor analysis done shows 12 factors. Another theory about musical performance anxiety has been suggested by Papageorgi, Hallam and Welch (2007) Papageorgi and his colleagues classify their theory in to three sub categories which are “pre-performance conditions”, “During performance conditions and post-performance conditions. All categories are divided into different sections to their it selves.
İn musical performance anxiety literature, there are many variables which may affect musical performance anxiety level. These variables age groups (child-adolescent-adult), sex, whether performance in front of audience or not, solo or group performance, performance experiences in the past, educational process, learning experiences in the past one’s self efficacy level and one’s having adequate meta-cognitional abilities, task efficacy and perfectionism and a lot more variables are seen as effective factors on mpa.
Ryan (2009), in her research, examined choral singer’s experiences with conductor, performance history and problem solving abilities and their relationships with mpa. Ryan found that musical performance anxiety is experienced among choral singers widely. Solo performances trigger mpa rather than group performances. Ryan emphasized that conductors are primary factors for choral singer’s performance anxiety level. He also found that orchestral performances are more anxious than choral performances. Thomas and Nettelbeck (2014) in their researches examined secondary school students (n = 90) musical anxiety level who had taken elective music lesson. According to results, girls showed more anxiety than boys. İn musical performance anxiety literatures many researches can find that support these findings (Abel & Larkin, 1990; Abrams &Manstead, 1981). Another finding gathered from research is there is a significant correlation between neuroticism and mpa among adolescents and there is a negative but significant correlation between extraversion and mpa.
Brotons (1994), examined differences between performance in front of jury and non –jury. Brotons conducted preliminary interview with 64 university students who are different musical branches and later applied a pre-test which consist of measuring their heart rate and perceived mpa level and observed their body languages during performance. Brotons emphasized that their heart rate is highly in front of jury that non-jury settings. İn mpa literature many researches can be fined (LeBlanc, Jin, Obert, and Siivola 1997; Hamann, 1982; Cox and Kenardy 1993)
Osborne and Kenny20 state that in order to progress in mpa field, valid and reliable measuring tools are needed and in English literature there are 20 mpa self-report scale developed for such researches. This information shows the importance given to mpa. İn Turkish literature, there are only two Turkish scales. One of them is KMPAI translated into Turkish by Tokinan. İn Turkish version of scale, there are five factors and the Cronbach alpha coefficient is ,89. The factors are named as perception of negative performance, psychological vulnerability, and somatic form of anxiety, personal control and physical vulnerability. İn that research, there is a remarkable point. The factors that existing in original version of inventory named anxiety transfer from generation to other generation and parental empathy do not exist in Turkish version. This situation is seen as evidence that the factors which affect mpa is changeable from culture to another culture. Likewise, the items “ I find it difficult to depend on others” and “I find easy to trust others” doesn’t work in Turkish version. This findings show that the relationship between anxiety and trust is varies from culture to culture. These finding also show that İt is a great needing for develop Turkish culture-specific musical performance anxiety scales.
Second mpa scale in Turkish literature is developed by Çırakoğlu and Şentürk21 named as “Performance Anxiety Scale for Music Students” (PASMS). Study was conducted in three phases. First phase of study the factor structure of PASMS explored and three components were found. These components are “fear of stage”, “avoidance” and “symptoms”. The internal consistency of whole scale was found .95. Three components of PASMS explained 59,78 of total variance. Second phase of study, they used confirmatory factor analysis to 27-item scale in order to assess the construct validity but they did not achieve acceptable fit. They remove 3 items from the scale and they obtained 24-item scale. The final CFA results is χ2 = 652.33, df = 239, p=0.001, RMSEA = 0.06.
İn music education, performance can be analyzed by view of induction. This means, to provide great performances (e.g. solo concerts or recitals) this should be investigated little performances. For example students playing his/her work, in individual lessons, playing a part of orchestral music or singing in chorus lesson in front of their friends and teacher may cause mpa or may trigger existing mpa. This situation may harm student’s future performances or cause avoidance from performance. Therefore trainers should be investigated student’s reasons of mpa seriously. Trainer should not criticized student’s performance harshly, encourage students for demonstrate performance. But if student’s mpa is based on different psychological reasons, trainer should guide students to psychologists for cope with it.
Although the research mentioned above is seen as promising for Turkish literature, making new studies is major requirements. Because of many factors that may influence musical performance anxiety and mpa is vary from culture to culture more scale development study about mpa must be done. The aim of this study is developing valid and reliable musical performance anxiety scale. İn addition, to reflect the characteristics of mpa in Turkish culture and to contribute to create new conceptual models that help to explain mpa in Turkish culture.
Method
This study is conducted in three phases, on three study group. First, researches in mpa literature was searched (Kenny,2005, 2009; Çakıroğlu and Şentürk, 2013; Wolfe, 1989; Nagel, J.J., Himle, D.P., &Papsdorf, J.D. 1989) and in the light of this studies 105-item pre-trial form is prepared for content validity. Content validity is an opinion of authorities in mpa. İn this process, items efficiency in pre-trial form is assessed by authorities in order to omit items that identify musical performance anxiety clear. The authorities group is consist of associated professor in Ph.D., associated professor in university psychology department and professor in state conservatory. After content validity, the number of item is reduced to 53. This new form is applied to study group (n= 574) and explanatory factor analysis is performed in order to assess construct validity of the scale. The frequencies of study group 1 (n = 574) is indicated in table 1.
Table 1. Characterizes of study Group 1.
Frequency / Percent / Cum. PercentGender / Male / 296 / 51,6 / 51,6
Female / 278 / 48,4 / 100,0
Age / 17-19 / 308 / 53,7 / 53,7
20-23 / 213 / 37,1 / 90,8
24 and over / 53 / 9,2 / 100,0
Grade / Fresman / 153 / 26,7 / 26,7
Sophomore / 125 / 21,8 / 48,4
Junior / 132 / 23,0 / 71,4
Senior / 164 / 28,6 / 100,0
Exploratory factor analysis is multivariate statistic method which used for obtain independent, fewer new conceptually meaningful dimensions from many variables which is brought together and related each other (Büyüköztürk, 2002). At the same time, this process is used for assess construct validation of scales. Construct validity refers to the ability of a measure tool to actually measure the abstract construct (Tavşancıl, 2002). İn this study before explanatory factor analysis is performed, appropriateness of factor analysis is measured. KMO results obtained shows that data set is appropriate for factor analysis (KMO ,90; Bartlett test of sphericity 9108,8 Sd =1378, sig ,001).