Musical Performance Anxiety: Relations between Personal Features and State Anxiety Levels of Pre-Service Music Teachers

Article History: Received 23.02.2014 Received in revised form 11.05.2014 Accepted 26.05.2014 Available online 10.08.2014 Musical performance anxiety, also known as stage fright, is such a significant obstacle to music performance that it can interfere with or even end careers. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between pre-service music teachers’ state anxiety levels just before a concert and their genders, ages, self-efficacy, number of years of playing their instruments, length of daily instrumental practice time, and previous concert performance experiences. Data were gathered from forty-three pre-service music teachers (F=29; M=14) using State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) (Speilberger, Gorsuch & Luschene, 1970), Self-efficacy Towards Music Ability Scale (Ozmentes & Ozmentes, 2008) and a personal information form including information related with musical performance experience. Additionally, state anxiety inventory was administered to participants just before their solo performances. The results showed that pre-performance state anxiety levels of the female students are significantly higher than for the male students, and significant positive correlations were found between participants’ state anxiety and trait anxiety levels. Additionally, negative significant correlations were found between participants’ self-efficacy in their musical abilities and the number of years of playing their instruments; and a small negative correlation between state anxiety and self-efficacy was found. Results were discussed with reference to related literature and some suggestions were made concerning the results. © 2014 IOJES. All rights reserved