Verification and Validation of the Musical Self-Concept Inquiry (MUSCI) to Measure ’Musical Self-Concept’ of German Students at Secondary Education Schools

Abstract

Musical development can be very differently during adolescence and the mechanisms and reasons, which lead to these differences, are often objects of music educational research. To measure the aspects of musical development of German students, the psychometric construct ‘musical self-concept’ can be used. So the first aim of this study was to verify the factor structure of the initial MUSCI-questionnaire to measure ‘musical self-concept’ of German students. The second aim was to re-specify the underlying factor model as well as to validate the renewed sub-facets of the questionnaire with musicspecific background variables (e. g. interest in ‘music’) as well as the construct ‘musical sophistication’. Data of 516 students (f = 260, m = 251, missing = 5) from three Grammar (n = 382) and three Middle (n = 112) Schools as well as one Junior High School (n = 22) are presented. The data comprised self-assessed ‘musical self-concept’ and ‘musical sophistication’ as well as music-specific and demographic background variables. Data analyses included structural equation models (SEM), reliability measurement, and correlational analyses. The re-specified factor model shows a good fit (RMSEA = .040, ��������/df = 1.808, TLI = .927 CFI = .941) as well as good subscale reliabilities (���� = .635 to ���� = .799). In order to analyze concurrent validity, the relationships between the re-specified subfacets of the MUSCI-questionnaire with ‘musical sophistication’ (r = .113 to r = .567) and musicspecific variables (r = .112 to r = .489) were defined. The results demonstrate that the renewed version of the MUSCI-questionnaire can be used to measure ‘musical self-concept’ of German students.