Week 2: Developing My Survey
Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog! This week, I’ve been designing my survey. My goal is to better understand the relationship between type of motivation and levels of performance anxiety in musicians. The survey consists of three key sections: Background, Motivation, and Performance Anxiety.
Background
To analyze how motivation and performance anxiety may differ among musicians, I first ask about participants’ musical background. This section includes questions about:
- Age and instrument(s)
- Years of experience
- Types of music classes taken (private lessons, school ensembles, college classes)
- Weekly practice hours
- Previous performance experience (Understanding their performance experience will help me determine whether they have had opportunities to experience performance anxiety)
My plan is to get a large sample size with students from all kinds of different backgrounds, so I can compare trends across different levels of experience and training.
Motivation
The goal of this section is to understand why the participants play or practice music. Specifically, I want to determine if they are primarily intrinsically or extrinsically motivated. I will do so by asking them to rate statements on a 1-5 scale (Strongly Disagree → Strongly Agree).
Intrinsic Motivation
Musicians with high intrinsic motivation practice because they love music and find personal satisfaction in it. For example:
- “I practice because I want to improve my skills as a musician.”
- “I use performing music as a way for me to express my emotions and creativity.”
Extrinsic Motivation
Musicians with high extrinsic motivation may be more motivated by external rewards, such as:
- “I learn my instrument because my parents want me to.”
- “I practice to win competitions, get good grades, and/or do well in auditions.”
Performance Anxiety
For context, performance anxiety is defined as the excessive fear of performing in front of others, which can lead to physical and emotional symptoms that can impair performance. So, in order to understand the participants’ levels of performance anxiety, my survey asks about:
- Pre-performance nerves (On a scale of 1-5, how anxious do you feel before performing?)
- Mistakes due to anxiety (On a scale of 1-5, how much do nerves cause you to make mistakes while playing?)
- Physical symptoms while performing (Sweaty palms, fast heartbeat, shaky hands, etc.)
- Avoidance behaviors (Have you ever skipped a performance due to anxiety?)
Additionally, at the end of this section, my survey asks about coping strategies for performance anxiety and how effective they are. While my project is focusing on motivation’s role in performance anxiety, my goal is also to find better ways to manage performance anxiety, by improving our understanding of risk factors and coping strategies.
What’s Next?
Once I finalize my survey, I will distribute it to music students and begin analyzing the responses. I’m so excited to see the results and share them with you all! Thank you so much for reading and stay tuned for more updates!
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