Understanding performance anxiety as a University Music situation
Fascinating discussion today led by Yi. The majority of research into Music Performance Anxiety is based on a psychological (individual treatment) model of the problem. But social support strategies can and do benefit University music students. Social contexts for learning and teaching are shaped by implicit and explicit pedagogical ideals. How well do University music teaching contexts recognise or reinforce these, for better or worse? As music performance anxiety research engages more critically with the complex of socio-cultural expectations that music students must work within, there is greater scope to develop social interventions that may alleviate MPA – e.g., [1] and [2].
We noticed that [1] reports on a very unbalanced sample of male/female participants. This may well be representative of the cohort — but we wondered about the implications for how beneficial the reported coping strategies would be for non-female-(identifying) students? A reminder that sex and gender differences are often overlooked in research design, study implementation and scientific reporting, as well as in general science communication.
