Moving towards Ecological Validity: Conceptions and Measurement of Children’s Musicality

Abstract

Although child musicality is inherently rich and diverse, assessments often reduce it to isolated, predominantly aural abilities. This reductionist approach compromises the ecological validity of the assessments by detaching musicality from its real-world context, thereby limiting a more nuanced understanding. Reframing musicality as a social construct that is shaped by cultural conceptions of music and aesthetics addresses these limitations by acknowledging its contextual and dynamic nature. From this perspective, caregivers, educators, and music professionals can provide essential insights based on their observations of children’s musical behavior in natural contexts, ultimately deepening our understanding of musicality. This dissertation contributes to the improvement of the ecological validity of musicality assessments by integrating the perspectives of parents, educators, and music professionals. Its goal is to advance research on musical development by providing a framework that reflects the complexity of musicality. In Study 1, conceptions of child musicality (ages 3 to 6 years) were examined and compared to those of adult musicality. Study 2 focused on infants and toddlers (under 3 years of age) and explored differences in conceptions within childhood. Study 3 developed a brief screening tool that allows parents and educators to assess individual differences in children’s musicality (ages 3 to 10 years). It was grounded in a broad conception of musicality and evaluated for its psychometric properties. The results underscore the multifaceted nature of child musicality, extending beyond musical abilities (i.e., perception and production) to include enthusiasm & motivation, musical communication and analytical understanding. In infants and toddlers, musical abilities, enthusiasm & motivation and musical communication were replicated while adaptive expressiveness emerged as the fourth component, indicating age-related conceptual differences. The screening instrument based on these findings showed strong psychometric properties, indicating its potential for valid and reliable assessment of children’s musicality. This dissertation establishes an ecologically valid understanding of musicality that is informed by caregivers, educators and music professionals, who regularly observe children’s musical behavior in real-life settings. Moreover, the developed screening tool enables research into individual differences in musical development and developmental trajectories. Together, these contributions facilitate the development of additional measurement tools that better capture the complexity of children's musical behavior. This work offers practical guidance for parents and educators on how to foster musical development.