Self Efficacy Paper

Self-efficacy is just as powerful a predictor of performance in music as skill or ability. Gary McPherson and John McCormick wanted to examine the role of motivation in young musicians’ capacity to prepare for, and satisfactorily complete, prepared examinations on their instrument (McPherson and McCormick, 2006). They felt this line of research was important considering the number of children worldwide who undertake graded externally assessed performance examinations. These kinds of performance events provide an excellent opportunity to study children’s motivation for learning their musical instruments, and a chance to explore and define important relationships that are often discussed in the literature, but rarely studied (p. 322). Previous studies suggest that self-efficacy precedes academic success because it motivates behavior that leads to successes. This studies aim was to look self-efficacy’s affect on motivation in young musicians.
For this study, the researchers used a sample of 686 students who were completing an Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) performance examination (90 in Grade 1, 125 in Grade 2, 138 in Grade 3, 119 in Grade 4, 96 in Grade 5, 52 in Grade 6, 31 in Grade 7 and 35 in Grade 8) (p. 324). The examinations were played in front of trained
330). Importantly, however, the effect of ‘cognitive strategy use’ was stronger on ‘formal practice’ than the actual time they spent practicing (p. 331). In agreement with previous data collected, self-efficacy was the best predictor of the student’s performance result in the examination. However, one educational necessity stemming from the results is to find better ways to identify students with low self-efficacy and then attempt to strengthen these students’ beliefs in the areas in which they find it difficult to