Deliberate practice in music: Development and psychometric validation of a standardized measurement instrument

Abstract

Practice is the process through which musicians improve their performance abilities and increase their level of expertise. Deliberate Practice (DP) is a theory of expertise based on the concept that interindividual differences in the level of proficiency in a specific domain can be mostly explained by interindividual differences in the amount of deliberate practice; despite its popularity, subsequent studies have demonstrated several critical issues in Ericsson’s DP concept, due to its vagueness in definitions, arbitrary measurements of expertise, and inability to account for the possible role of genes. The present project aimed at creating a new questionnaire, capable of measuring practice quality in terms of deliberate practice for the music domain, regardless of the instrument and musical genre played, at any level of expertise. Based on data from a sample of 1,558 musicians, ranging from amateurs to world-renowned soloists, the Deliberate Practice in Music Inventory (DPMI) was created, a self-report questionnaire and measurement instrument for practice quality consisting of a main DP scale and four subscales: Process improvement, Practice competences, Mindless practice (inverted scale), and Task decomposition. Results indicated that musicians who implement effective practice habits are focused on solving problems related to music playing and often refine their practice routines to increase their effectiveness. In addition, musicians who usually exhibit high amounts of DP behavior often decompose long and complex tasks into shorter and simpler elements, aiming to master them more easily and in shorter time. The DPMI instrument shows good convergent validity with measures related to expertise in music as well as good predictive validity for performance improvement. The DPMI generates new perspectives for the field of musical expertise research.

Music performance assessment: Noise in judgments and reliability of measurements.

“…Moreover, it aimed at investigating the effect of musical expertise on the reliability of music performance ratings and it explored the use of self-assessment and peer-evaluator scores in measuring improvement in performance quality. Finally, it investigated whether scores from the DPMI (Passarotto et al, 2022), a standardized self-report questionnaire Notes. N = 125; all correlations reported in the table were significant at the p , .001 level; corr = correlation between aggregated and true scores; RMSE = root mean square error; model = scores aggregated through Bayesian mixed-effects regression models; mean = mean scores across raters; med = median scores across raters.…”

“…Moreover, it aimed at investigating the effect of musical expertise on the reliability of music performance ratings and it explored the use of self-assessment and peer-evaluator scores in measuring improvement in performance quality. Finally, it investigated whether scores from the DPMI (Passarotto et al, 2022), a standardized self-report questionnaire measuring effective practice behaviors in music, corresponded to meaningful differences in performance ratings by the three cohorts of evaluators considered in the study.…”

“…Audio recordings were autonomously collected by the participants using different recording devices and coding formats: these were later converted by the researcher into stereo .mp3 files, sampled at 44.1 kHz and 192 kbps. During the monitoring period, at the end of each practice session, musicians in the self-assessment group reported their practice time (PT) in minutes and completed the Deliberate Practice in Music Inventory (DPMI, Passarotto et al, 2022). This self-report questionnaire consists of 23 items assessing practice quality in terms of deliberate practice behaviors in the music domain (i.e., “I repeat passages without a purpose” or “I check the effectiveness of the technique I am using”).…”

The General Flow Proneness Scale: Aspects of Reliability and Validity of a New 13-Item Scale Assessing Flow

“…Generally, concentration of mental activity, or narrowing of attention on a specific task while ignoring distractions, is one of the most crucial aspects of a successful learning process and performance (Murphy, 2012). However, the role of intrinsic motivation, such as engaging in activities for their own sake and enjoyment, has shown its significant effects on practice quality and resilience (Passarotto et al, 2022; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Stoeber & Eismann, 2007).…”