On the Development and Relationship of Musical Self-Efficacy and Academic Musical Self-Concept during school grades 7 and 8

Abstract

Musical self-concepts and musical self-efficacy need to be viewed as two similar, but yet different constructs. This article asks, how both constructs develop over the course of grade 7 and 8 in German secondary schools. It also inquires, in how far they depend from each other over time. For this purpose, latent state analysis, latent state-trait analysis, and autoregressive models are applied.

In these analyses, the here employed subscale of musical self-efficacy proves to be sufficiently reliable over time. The calculated data of musical self-efficacy are to be attributed to a trait in the main respect, and depend only marginally from the influences of the measurement. Within autoregressive models, musical self-concepts and musical self-efficacy at an early measurement date each are the best predictors for their parameter values at a later measurement date. However, musical self-efficacy in an early stage has some influence on the measured musical ability self-concept at a later stage through cross-lagged effects. On the other hand, no effects from musical ability self-concepts at an early stage on the tested subscale of musical self-efficacy can be observed.

Keywords: Development, musical self-concept, musical self-efficacy, structural equation modeling