Self-evaluation, creativity, and musical achievement

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between students’ self-assessments of their musical compositions and experts’ assessments. College students ( N = 54) who were enrolled in a music fundamentals course for elementary education students participated in this study. Each student completed three composition-performance assignments using a soprano recorder. Upon completing each assignment, students were asked to self-administer controlling and informational feedback. The third set of compositions was used as a measure of the students’ compositional creativity. Independent judges reached acceptable levels of agreement in assessing compositional creativity and other dimensions allowing students to be placed into high-, middle-, and low-creativity groups. The students’ informational feedback was analyzed and classified. Chi-square analyses of the students’ informational feedback yielded statistically significant differences among the three creativity groups. Students in the high- and middle-creativity groups were more likely to cite experimentation and express optimism than students in the low creativity group ( p < .05); the high- and middle-creativity groups were also more likely to cite eight or more factors in their self-assessments ( p < .001). Students in the high-creativity group were more likely to employ an expressive intent in their title and engage in critical analyses than students in the middle- and low-creativity groups ( p < .05). There was no significant correlation between the judges’ evaluations and the students’ controlling feedback.