A survey of backgrounds, attitudes, and experiences of new music therapy students

Students of music therapy are a diverse group. They are drawn to the study of music therapy for a variety of reasons, come with varied musical backgrounds and talents, and have definite expectations of the profession. Although music therapy educators are well aware of the characteristics of students in their own programs, a large-scale description of music therapy students' backgrounds, attitudes, and expectations has not been done. The purpose of this study was to provide a description of new music therapy students as a group, including demographic data, academic and musical backgrounds, their prior knowledge of music therapy, factors influencing choice of major and choice of school, and general professional goals. Surveys eliciting structured and unstructured responses were returned by 297 music therapy students from 33 colleges. Free-form responses were analyzed into representative categories. The data indicate some clear patterns and trends among music therapy students and provide some insight into students' decisions regarding the field of music therapy.