Abstract:

There are two different types of music education in Hungary. On the one hand, every school has a compulsory singing and music subject, where students only learn to sing. In addition, there are music schools where it is also taught how to play instruments. Attending music school is optional, but at the same time tuition-based form of education that contributes to the development of artistic skills (Héjja, 2016). Only a few percent of students attend such a music school. The popularity of the compulsory school singing and music subject is low (Janurik & Józsa, 2018). However, no research has focused on the motivation of learning in music school in Hungary, thus we investigated this issue in our research. In this study, we analyzed the obtained results based on the self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017). We adapted the Motivation for Learning Music Questionnaire (Comeau, Huta, Lu, & Swirp, 2019) to Hungarian. The statements can be divided into five factors that indicate each type of motivation: amotivation, external regulation, introjection, identification, and intrinsic motivation. Students rated themselves on 25 items of the questionnaire by using a five-point Likert scale. Our aim was to explore whether there is a difference between different age groups, boys and girls, and between students playing different types of instruments in each type of motivation.

151 students took part in the study between the age of 10–18, who have been learning to play an instrument. The questionnaire was found to be reliable for all five factors, with Cronbach’s alpha values above 0.8. Based on our results, there is no significant difference between boys and girls in each motivation type. There is a difference depending on the time spent on learning the instrument. Thus, students in primary and secondary art education can be distinguished: introjection (t = -2.93; p < 0.01) and identification (t = -5.88; p < 0.01) for students in secondary institutions were more typical. Based on research findings and the literature, the more students spend time on learning an instrument, the more out-of-school motivation increases (Hallam et al., 2020). In contrast, research in compulsory schooling shows that learning motivation decreases with age (Józsa, & Morgan, 2014).

One of our background questions was whether it was students’ own choice to learn an instrument or they made a choice with their parents about learning an instrument. Based on the theory of self-determination, children of parents who support autonomy are more internally motivated. Our results are also in line with this, as students who chose to learn instruments independently have significantly higher intrinsic motivation (t = 2.28, p <0.05, Cohen-d = 0.38). It was found that there is a significant difference (F = 2.66; p = 0.04) between the string instrument (M = 3.95, SD = 0.89) and the plucking instrument (M = 3.14, SD = 1.01), also between the string instrument (M = 3.95, SD = 0.89) and the keyboard instrument (M = 3.11, p < 0.01). Our results are the first Hungarian research data in this field. Using the results, we can better understand the motivation of Hungarian students to learn musical instruments.

Keywords:

Motivation, music learning, self-determination theory.