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An Attitude Assessment of Amateur Musicians in Adult Community Bands

The purpose of this study was to ascertain certain factors which lead adults to participate in community band activity. This study attempted to answer the following questions: 1. What are the factors of rewards for community band participants based on the responses of a selected sample to validated attitude statements? 2. What are the relationships that might exist between certain demographic characteristics of the sample such as age, gender, education, occupation, musical training, geographic region (independent variables) and factors of participation (dependent variables) determined by principal components analysis? 3. What are the relationships that might exist between the findings of this study using member generated attitude statements and the findings of other attitude studies using researcher generated attitude statements? A 179-item survey was developed from an initital pool of 839 attitude statements after two pilot studies and an expert review. A randomly selected, stratified cluster sample of 74 organizational members of the Association of Concert Bands participated in the study. The average number of band members present during the survey process was 35. The average number of surveys returned per band was 23.66 for a return rate of 65.9% One thousand seven hundred twenty five individuals participated in the study. Frequency distributions of responses revealed the 36-50 age group to be the most represented (33%) followed closely by the 51-65 age group (27.8%). Males outnumbered females (57.5% to 42.3%). Over 80% of respondents were married. Almost 75% of respondents were college graduates. Over 60% had performed in college ensembles. Over half (55.4%) of respondents were either employed in the professional trades or white collar occupations. Almost 10% considered themselves professional musicians. Principal components analysis of the 179 items yielded six main factors of participation which were labeled Intrinsic Motivators, Organizational Motivators, Membership Standards, Repertoire/Conductor, Rehearsals/Performances, and Quality. Further analysis of Intrinsic Motivators yielded five second level components which were labeled Self-Growth, Musical Growth, Community Pride, Social Rewards, and Conductor. Second level components extracted from Organizational Motivators were labeled Attendance/Practice, Community Support, and Music Selection. Using t-tests and ANOVA, many significant relationships were found between groups on the six main factors and eight sub-factors (independent variables) with the demographic variables (dependent variables), especially age, gender, occupation, level of ensemble experience, past geographic region, present geographic region, and community size.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc277924
Date12 1900
CreatorsSpencer, William David, 1952-
ContributorsRamsey, Darhyl S. (Darhyl Sterling), Warner, Roger Wayne, Fisher, Dennis W., Brookshire, William K.
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
Formatx, 342 leaves, Text
RightsPublic, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved., Spencer, William David, 1952-

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