Social support is one of the variables that exert the greatest influence on the motivation of music students, as well as on emotional aspects that affect their results. Research, however, is limited by the current scarcity of evaluation tools. This article thus presents the process of adaptation into Spanish of the Social Support Scale. We report on the elaboration of the questionnaire’s exact wording through direct and reverse translation. We subsequently present analysis of internal reliability and validity based on a sample of 668 music students in music schools and university-level music academies, aged 12–60 (mean 16.9). The study is complemented by an analysis of factorial invariance comparing secondary education and university. The results reproduce the social support factors stemming from parents and teachers; peer support is subdivided into two subcategories. Discrepancies with the original version are not so much due to the adaptation process, but can be attributed, for the most part, to differences between the sample compositions. Our results indicate that Spanish music students perceive a considerable amount of social support for their music learning activities; differences stand out, however, in terms of age, gender, and educational level.

This article presents the process of translation into Spanish, adaptation, and validation of the General Musical Self-Efficacy Scale by Ritchie and Williamon. After having carried out reverse translation and a preliminary study, the scale was tested on a sample of 668 students enrolled in six Spanish music academies (secondary school and university level). Our results corroborated the two original subscales: one for self-efficacy for learning (α = .792 and α = .734), and the other for self-efficacy for public performance (α = .773 and α = .780), after having removed one item in each subscale on the basis of internal consistency indicators and factorial analysis. The subscales we thereby obtained likewise presented good temporal stability ( r = .513 and .539); they both correlated with performance anxiety (stage fright); both correlated more highly with the public performance subscale. Validation data signaled higher scores obtained by students enrolled in university-level music academies, by students who had started music training at an earlier age, for the boys at secondary level, and for the younger group of students at secondary level. To summarize, this version of the General Musical Self-Efficacy Scale is a valid, reliable tool for measuring self-efficacy in Spanish music students.