Interest in the study of emotions in education has grown in recent years. Some of our modern challenges, such as constantly adapting to new scenarios or the need for team work have justified the introduction of emotional competence into educational systems, while diverse studies confirm the relationship between music and emotional intelligence, so that the former could be used as a tool to develop the latter. The aim of this work was to examine the evidence for positive effects of music on the emotions of 3- to 12-year-old children, to which end a systematic review was carried out. Two reviewers independently evaluated 424 studies that were identified in MEDLINE, Psycinfo, and CINAHL databases, in order to determine whether they met the stated inclusion criteria. A total of 26 articles were selected for review. The results suggest several beneficial effects of music on children’s development, such as greater emotional intelligence, academic performance, and prosocial skills. It can therefore be concluded that music should be used in school settings, not only as an important subject in itself, but also as an educational tool within other subjects.

The use in psychology of crowdsourcing platforms as a method of data collection has been increasing in popularity because of its relative ease and versatility. Our goal is to adapt the Gratitude Questionnaire–20 Items (G20) to the English language by using data collected through a crowdsourcing platform. The G20 is a comprehensive instrument that takes in consideration the different basic processes of gratitude and assesses the construct’s cognitive, evaluative, emotional, and behavioral processes. We test the psychometric properties of the English version of the G20 with a Prolific (ProA) user sample. We assess the adequacy of the G20 for the crowdsourcing population in its English version. A description of the characteristics of the participants is conducted. Reliability analyses reveal an optimal internal consistency of the adapted scale. The results are discussed from a cross-cultural vision of gratitude. We conclude that the Gratitude Questionnaire–20 Items (G20), adapted to English with an American sample, is a psychometrically strong instrument to measure gratitude using crowdsourcing platforms for data collection and, therefore, a reference and useful tool in future research.

Acquiring musical skills requires sustained effort over long periods of time. This work aims to explore the variables involved in sustaining motivation in music students, including perceptions about one’s own skills, satisfaction with achievements, effort, the importance of music in one’s life, and perception of the sacrifice made. Two models were developed in which the variable of gratitude was included to integrate positive psychology into the motivational area of music education. The first predicts effort, while the second predicts gratitude. The models were tested using a sample of 84 music students. Both models were fitted using Bayesian analysis techniques to examine the relationship between variables and showed adequate goodness of fit. These models emphasize the role of cognition and motivation in music education and, more precisely, the relationship between effort and gratitude.

The importance of trait indebtedness in the context of the study of gratitude has been growing in recent years, since both constructs form complex dynamics in response to the reception of a gift. In this work, the disposition to feel indebtedness is studied, through analysis of convergence and divergence, exploratory, and confirmatory analysis in the Spanish population, with the most used measurement instrument, i.e. The Revised Indebtedness Scale, IS-R. This scale depicted a four factor solution interrelated with a high consistency of content, which allows their labeling and describing. To do this, two samples of university students were selected; one of the sample sizes had 229 participants and the other 200 participants. Results also indicated good internal consistency described as follows: Debt for material aspects (α = 0.81), Self-sufficiency and discomfort in receiving help (α = 0.82), Moral self-demand in the reception of help (α = 0.83) and Debt in the receipt of gifts (α = 0.75). Furthermore, it was suggested that the relationships between gratitude and indebtedness are complex: on the one hand, all the indebtedness factors are inversely correlated with gratitude, such as the GQ5, although only Self-sufficiency and discomfort in receiving help and Debt in the receipt of gifts are such to a significant extent. However, the Interpersonal Gratitude scale of the G-20 depicted low correlations only with the Self-sufficiency and discomfort. The results are discussed in relation to the need for conceptual definition of the constructs in Positive Psychology.

Durante los últimos años, ha cobrado relevancia el análisis crítico de los contenidos musicales que se imparten en los centros de educación formal, señalando la necesidad de que estos sean representativos de la diversidad cultural y ofrezcan herramientas a los estudiantes para comprender su propia contemporaneidad. Con el objetivo de profundizar en su estudio, se ha realizado una revisión sistemática del currículum escrito en la educación musical primaria mediante el análisis de 49 artículos científicos de ámbito internacional. Los temas más recurrentes giran en torno a la estructura del currículum, la diversidad que refleja y la ideología que pretende transmitir. Los resultados señalan una progresiva estandarización, una función de legitimación del orden político, y el retroceso de la hegemonía de la música académica occidental.

El uso de metodologías renovadoras que incluyan elementos atractivos para el alumnado de la ESO y Bachillerato está relacionado en muchos casos por la utilización de recursos TIC, cuyas aplicaciones en el aula de secundaria y de bachillerato se realizan mediante plataformas creadas con fines didácticos con un uso restringido al ámbito académico. No obstante, estas aplicaciones no figuran entre las que más utilizan los jóvenes de nuestro país por voluntad propia. En este sentido, en el presente artículo se ha implementado una intervención didáctica en dos grupos de 4º curso de ESO y primer curso de bachillerato de un instituto público de la zona metropolitana de la ciudad de Valencia, en las asignaturas de música y de análisis musical respectivamente, que se sirve de la red social Instagram como herramienta de aprendizaje de los contenidos musicales que se están impartiendo en el libro de texto de forma tradicional. La aplicación de Instagram con el fin de crear memes de los contenidos que se están impartiendo en las asignaturas de música en estos niveles académicos mejoran los resultados de aprendizaje del alumnado de forma muy positiva. Asimismo, este tipo de actividades resultan muy motivadoras para el alumnado frente a las metodologías convencionales.

The aim of this research was to examine the moderation effects of comparative thinking (CT) across the relationship between gratitude and affect during the COVID-19 outbreak. To this purpose, multiple regression as well as moderation analyses were carried out. Age and sex were also addressed as variables of interest as described in previous literature. A sample of 306 north Americans was recruited by crowdsourcing platform ProA to obtain a representative sample based on age and gender. The participants filled in a questionnaire based on comparative thinking in relation to the emotional experience experienced before and during the COVID-19 outbreak, positive and negative affect schedule for positive and negative affect, as well as Gratitude Questionnaire - Six Items Form scores for gratitude. The main results of the current study related to the COVID-19 outbreak can be listed as follows: (i) no differences between CT groups in the gratitude trait, but differences in positive and negative affect did occur; (ii) regression models that included age, gratitude, and affect variables predicted negative and positive affects but gender did not reach the statistical level; (iii) two moderation models predicted affect from gratitude, with the CT variable moderating this effect; this moderation effect was also statistically significant in predicting negative affect but it was not statistically significant in predicting positive affect. These results might be of interest for training programs in applied levels and theoretical models of gratitude.

Background Currently, there are few empirical studies that demonstrate the effects of music on specific emotions, especially in the educational context. For this reason, this study was carried out to examine the impact of music to identify affective changes after exposure to three musical stimuli. Methods The participants were 71 university students engaged in a music education course and none of them were musicians. Changes in the affective state of non-musical student teachers were studied after listening to three pieces of music. An inter-subject repeated measures ANOVA test was carried out using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) to measure their affective state. Results The results revealed that: (i) the three musical experiences were beneficial in increasing positive affects and reducing negative affects, with significant differences between the interaction of Music Experiences × Moment (pre-post); (ii) listening to Mahler’s sad fifth symphony reduced more negative affects than the other experimental conditions; (iii) performing the blues had the highest positive effects. Conclusions These findings provide applied keys aspects for music education and research, as they show empirical evidence on how music can modify specific affects of personal experience.