Factors Affecting the Motivation of Hong Kong Primary School Students in Composing Music.

This study reports students' motivation changes after they were guided to compose. A total of 582 students in five primary schools responded to a set of pre- and post-activity questionnaires before and after participating in composing activities. A univariate ANOVA and a series of repeated measures ANOVAs were used to compare the mean scores before and after the composing activities to measure the different levels of student perception towards music composition. Results suggested that students' gender and their instrumental learning experience were two factors that significantly affected the motivational changes. In general, boys and non-instrumentalists had a significantly lower level of motivation than girls and instrumentalists. However, after experiencing the composing activities, boys had significantly elevated their self-efficacy, while non-instrumentalists had increased their self-efficacy, intrinsic value, utility value and expectancy.

[1]  Jackie Wiggins,et al.  Teaching for Musical Understanding , 2000 .

[2]  R. Bangs.  An application of Amabile's model of creativity of creativity to music instruction : A comparison of motivational strategies , 1992 .

[3]  B. Zimmerman,et al.  Self-Motivation for Academic Attainment: The Role of Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Personal Goal Setting , 1992, American Educational Research Journal.

[4]  Yi-Chuan Hsieh,et al.  The Impact of Web-Based Assessment and Practice on Students' Mathematics Learning Attitudes , 2006 .

[5]  David Elliott,et al.  Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education , 1995 .

[6]  J. Eccles.  Expectancies, values and academic behaviors , 1983 .

[7]  Sanjay K. Pandey,et al.  Gender Dimensions of Public Service Motivation , 2006 .

[8]  Frank M. Pajares,et al.  Self-Efficacy Beliefs in Academic Settings , 1996 .

[9]  Sarah J Wilson,et al.  An Exploration of Children's Musical Compositions , 1995 .

[10]  B. Leung.  A framework for undertaking creative music-making activities in Hong Kong secondary schools , 2004 .

[11]  Barbara van Ernst.  A Study of the Learning and Teaching Processes of Non-Naive Music Students Engaged in Composition , 1993 .

[12]  J. Eccles,et al.  Expectancy-Value Theory of Achievement Motivation. , 2000, Contemporary educational psychology.

[13]  T. Amabile,et al.  The conditions of creativity. , 1988 .

[14]  P. Burnard.  Bodily Intention in Children's Improvisation and Composition , 1999 .

[15]  M. Csíkszentmihályi.  Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention , 1996 .

[16]  P. Burnard.  Task Design and Experience in Composition , 1995 .

[17]  J. Sloboda.  The Musical Mind: The Cognitive Psychology of Music , 1987 .

[18]  P. Jonason.  An Evolutionary Psychology Perspective on Sex Differences in Exercise Behaviors and Motivations , 2007, The Journal of social psychology.

[19]  P. Morris,et al.  The music curriculum in Hong Kong secondary schools — intentions and constraints , 1998 .

[20]  Peter Webster,et al.  Creativity as Creative Thinking , 1990 .

[21]  A. Bandura,et al.  Cultivating competence, self-efficacy, and intrinsic interest through proximal self-motivation. , 1981 .

[22]  A. Bandura.  Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. , 1977, Psychological review.

[23]  P. Burnard.  Examining experiential differences between improvisation and composition in children's music-making , 2000, British Journal of Music Education.

[24]  Thérèse Bouffard-Bouchard,et al.  Influence of Self-Efficacy on Self-Regulation and Performance among Junior and Senior High-School Age Students , 1991 .

[25]  A. Bandura.  Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control , 1997, Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy.