Students’ motivation to study music: The Brazilian context

Abstract

This article presents the results of the Brazilian component of an international research project entitled ‘Meanings of music for students in school-based and non-school musical activities’ across eight countries. This research aimed to investigate the importance and the meaning assigned by students to musical activities developed in school and non-school contexts. The method consisted of a survey, involving 21,975 students from eight countries (Brazil, China, Finland, Hong Kong, Israel, Mexico, South Korea, and the USA), which was based on the Eccles and Wigfield’s expectancy-value model for motivation. The Brazilian sample consisted of 1848 students from the 6th grade of fundamental education to the 3rd grade of high school, from 11 cities of the Rio Grande do Sul state. These students belonged to three different cohorts of music learning. Those who had: (a) music in schools and as an extra-school activity; (b) music as a school subject; (iii) music as an outside school activity. Data collection was carried out through a 38-item questionnaire about the students’ profile and their opinions on interest, importance, difficulty, utility, competence and confidence in relation to arts, science, physical education (PE), mathematics, Portuguese, and music. Data were examined using mixed-design Analyses of Variance (ANOVAs). Results show that the degree of interest, importance and utility of music increased as the students progressed through schooling, which contradicts data generated from this study in most of the other countries. Despite the interest of Brazilian students in music, arts and PE, they considered Portuguese, mathematics and science to be more important and useful. When compared to other countries, the results show that Brazilian students demonstrated a great value for music, despite the differences in the learning contexts of the three groups. Those students who only studied music in schools showed the lowest levels of interest, importance and utility.

A PRISMA review of expectancy-value theory in music contexts

“…As noted earlier, research on expectancy-value in music contexts was often conducted in North American, Oceanian, and European countries. South Africa (Parkes & Daniel, 2013;Venter, 2019) was the only African country covered, while Brazil (Hentschke, 2010) was the only South American country involved, resonating with Henrich et al's (2010) observation that in psychological research, participants from "WEIRD" (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) populations were most often sampled. As Henrich et al (2010) argued, "we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity" (p. 61).…”

“…First, researchers have compared students' expectancy-value beliefs across music and other school subjects. An international research project led by McPherson and colleagues (González-Moreno, 2010;Hentschke, 2010;Juvonen, 2011;Leung & McPherson, 2010;McPherson & Hendricks, 2010;McPherson & O'Neill, 2010;Portowitz et al, 2010;Seog et al, 2011;Xie & Leung, 2011) investigated students' motivation to study music as a school subject across eight countries (Brazil, Mainland China, Finland, Hong Kong, Israel, South Korea, Mexico, and the United States). Based on the data from these eight countries, McPherson and O'Neill (2010) compared students' motivation to study music and other school subjects (art, mathematics, mother tongue, and physical education).…”

Psicologia da Música: Aportes Teóricos e Metodológicos por mais de um século

“…Estudos de levantamento (surveys) são amplamente empregados na temática de motivação em música. Por exemplo, a motivação em estudar música na escola foi investigada em contexto brasileiro (Hentschke et al, 2009;Hentschke, 2010), norte-americano (Davies, 2009) e chinês (Leung & McPherson, 2010 Essas três abordagens dependem da natureza da população investigada ou do escopo de investigação. Por exemplo, pesquisas cuja população não possa verbalizar de forma indubitável ou passiva de compreensão, tais como sujeitos com síndromes (vide, por exemplo, Levitin et al, 2003Levitin et al, , 2004, crianças nos primeiros anos de vida (Imberty, 2000;Trehub, Schellemberg & Hill, 1997) ou animais (vide, por exemplo, Chiandetti & Vallortigara, 2011;Hagmann & Cook, 2010;Hoeschele et al, 2012) empregam abordagens psicobiológicas.…”

Disentangling motivation within instrumental music learning: a systematic review

“…Different perspectives have been used to understand an individual's motivation to study music, ranging from more general approaches that are based on music as an area of learning in elementary and high schools, to more specific approaches focused on the learning of musical instruments. Perhaps the most comprehensive of the first type involved a series of studies led by McPherson that surveyed over 30,000 school students across nine different countries that examined students' motivation to study music as compared to their other school subjects (McPherson & O'Neill, 2010;Gonzalez-Moreno, 2010;Leung & McPherson, 2010;Hentschke, 2010;McPherson & Henricks, 2010;Portowitz, González-Moreno, & Hendricks, 2010;Xie & Leung, 2011;Juvonen, 2011;Seog, Hendricks, & González-Moreno, 2011;McPherson, Osborne, Davidson, Barrett, & Faulkner, R, 2015). McPherson and his colleagues report a decline in interest in studying music as a school subject as students approach the 9 th grade, which they interpret to a lower valuing of music and its usefulness by the students as they begin to focus on their future careers after leaving school.…”