The Relationships between Attitudes towards Instrumental Practising, Self-Esteem and Demographic Characteristics of Pre-Service Music Teachers

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the relationships between pre-service music teachers'general self-esteem levels and attitudes towards instrumental practice and their personal characteristics such as gender, age, high school from which they graduated and university at which they took music education. The sample of this study consisted of 424 (n=424) pre-service music teachers at Adnan Menderes University, Dokuz Eylul University, Mugla Sitki Kocman University, Canakkale 18 Mart University and Pamukkale University. Data were collected using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Cuhadaroglu, 1986) and The Attitude Scale Towards Instrumental Practice (Ozmentes, 2007). It has been observed that pre-service music teachers have high levels of self-esteem and middle level attitudes towards instrumental practice and while there is positive but low level relationship between their self-esteem and attitudes towards instrumental practice, there is no significant relationship between their self-esteem and attitudes towards instrumental practice and their age, gender and the type of high school from which they graduated. After all, there was a significant relationship between their self-esteem and attitudes towards instrumental practice and their grade levels. No significant relationships were found between pre-service music teachers' general self- esteem and their musical instruments when they chose them voluntarily, but significant relationships were found between their attitudes towards instrumental practice and their musical instruments when thewy did not choose them voluntarily. © 2015 IOJES. All rights reserved