Influence of music education in college on development of musical talents and creative (divergent) thinking of students (La influencia de la educación musical formal en el talento musical y el pensamiento creativo (divergente) de los estudiantes)

ABSTRACT Professional education formation accelerates implementing specialized areas of developing the right skills and knowledge that a music student should possess in their future career. The purpose of this study is to identify the impact of music education in college on the development of individuals’ musical and creative abilities in comparison to self-taught musicians. The assessment involved the analysis of these aptitudes of the respondents using two separate techniques: Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Test to identify respondents’ musical aptitudes and Williams’ test battery to investigate divergent thinking. Given the timeliness and correctness of the execution of instructions for each of the tests, the original study sample included 190 individuals. Analysis of the research findings on the two parameters among the majority of respondents confirmed the expected correlation. As for the first factor of the analysis, approximately 53% of the respondents with musical intelligence demonstrated the expected correlation of this indicator with attendance of educational institutions. This being the case, 57% of respondents have a high level of creative thinking given attendance of a college of music.