Construction of an instrument for assessing musical expressiveness in teachers and students in Higher Music Education

Introduction. Expressing and communicating emotions is one of the main functions of music. Learning the skills involved in this communication is a central part of training performers; the study of teachers' and students' conceptions of appropriate ways to improve expressiveness can be considered a priority task for psychoeducational research. The aim of this study, therefore, is to: a) validate an instrument for assessing such conceptions; b) learn how teachers and students of higher levels of music education rate different teaching-learning strategies of emotional expressiveness in music; and c) to compare these ratings between the two groups. Method. For this purpose, 229 persons (170 students and 59 teachers) from the Music Conservatory of Madrid completed a questionnaire about improving expressiveness. Four different strategies for teaching and learning expressiveness were included. Results. There were certain statistically significant differences between groups in their preferences for different strategies. The most important differences, however, were found in within-group comparisons: the strategy based on the use of technical instructions received the best ratings, whereas modelling was the strategy with the poorest ratings. These effects were independent of gender and age. The theoretical factor structure had excellent fit to the data (CFI=.95). Discussion and conclusions. In conclusion, the two groups differed in their conceptions about the best strategies for training in expressiveness, but they agreed on their preferences for one strategy or another, with particular preference for the use of technical instructions. The possible pedagogical implications of these differences are discussed, and this questionnaire is recommended for use in educational settings.