engleski

Music performance anxiety in Croatian students

Performance anxiety is a frequent and very distressing experience for professional musicians and music students. As the professional development starts early among musicians, younger samples are of special interest. The present study explored performance anxiety in a sample of 43 students (age 16-28) who attended Croatian music school in Rijeka. We used the Croatian version of the Music Performance Anxiety Inventory for Adolescents that was designed to assess somatic, cognitive and behavioral components of performance anxiety. Factor analysis of our data identified one reliable factor (Croanbach's alpha 0.85). Results showed a high incidence of performance anxiety in our sample. About 14% of the students express high levels of anxiety report that has in some way negatively affected their performance. Even if there is a slight tendency of girls experiencing higher performance anxiety than boys, we found no significant sex and age differences. Less anxious students like to perform more often and they tend to have somebody in their family playing music. The more often students perform, the less anxiety they express (r=-.039 ; p<0.01). This result confirms the importance of exposure in preventing and treating music performance anxiety. The scale is used for identification of students at risk for performance anxiety and in evaluation of the brief group cognitive-behavioral treatment for students that involve cognitive interventions (identification and evaluation of dysfunctional thoughts and beliefs) and behavioural interventions (exposure, relaxation, external focus). In future research we plan to assess the relationship of musicperformance anxiety with specific aspects of social anxiety, fear that a person is observed and evaluated by others and anxiety in social interaction.

music performance anxiety; students

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