Domain-specific determinants of musical leisure time activities in elementary school children

Abstract

Why do some primary school students play an instrument or sing in a choir and others do not? Most previous studies were either descriptive reports on musical activities or they were limited in the operationalization of the determinants. Thus, based on a theoretical framework, we developed and tested scales for the assessment of musical leisure time activities and their domain-specific determinants (musical self-concept, injunctive and descriptive subjective norm, intrinsic aspect of attitude) in N = 193 fourth graders. All domain-specific determinants showed statistically significant correlations with musical leisure time activities. In a structural equation model, both descriptive norm and attitude and in particular the musical self-concept displayed unique explanatory value for musical activities (68 % variance explanation). Slightly higher activity levels of girls were completely mediated by the domain-specific determinants. In future studies, the developed scales may be applied for the evaluation of interventions fostering musical activities in primary school children.