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The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to describe university music students’ perceptions of competitiveness, perfectionism, and teacher control in conservatory-style learning environments, and (2) to test a theoretical model of a network of relationships among perceptions of competitiveness, perfectionism, teacher control, quality of motivation, and intentions to pursue a career in music. Participants were undergraduate and graduate music majors from schools of music in the Midwestern United States and Australia. Results revealed that commitment to a career in music was strong, autonomous motivation orientations were more strongly endorsed than controlled motivation orientations, reports of teacher control and socially prescribed perfectionism were weak, whereas reports of competitiveness were strong. Path analyses indicated that those with stronger career intentions also have stronger autonomous motivation orientations and perceive their teachers as more controlling. Autonomous motivation orientations were stronger for those who perceive their environment to be more competitive and weaker for those who experience more perfectionism and teacher control. Participants reporting greater perceptions of teacher control and more perfectionism tended to report weaker career intentions by virtue of the indirect relationships of the variables through autonomous motivation. In contrast, those who experienced greater degrees of perfectionism tended to report stronger controlled motivation orientations.
Miksza et al. (Fri,) studied this question.