Author(s): Ruken OZTOPALAN* and Esin UCAL CANAKAY
The aim of this study is to develop a scale to measure the attitudes of students –who are studying western art music– towards orchestra classes, which play a significant role in preparing them for their professional careers. During the development of the scale, a literature review and a study of similar scales were undertaken. After evaluating essays written by 20 undergraduate students taking orchestra classes, in which they've shared their thoughts about the class, a pool of 60 items was developed. The opinions of seven experts ( three experts in the field, two orchestra conductors who run orchestra courses, and two experts in educational sciences) were taken into consideration in order to verify the validation of the scope of the scale. The number of items was reduced to 42 according to the suggestions of these experts, and the resulting test was applied to a total of 212 undergraduate students studying at the State Conservatories of Dokuz Eylül University, Akdeniz University, Uluda? University, Anadolu University, Trakya University; in addition to the music departments of the Faculty of Music and Performing Arts at Bilkent University and the Faculty of Art and Design at Ya?ar University. To check the reliability of the scale, the internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach Alpha) and item-total correlations were calculated. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was measured as 0,919, and the value of Bartlett's test of sphericity was calculated to be significant. Factor analysis was employed to check the structural validity of the scale, for which principal component analysis and varimax transformations were utilized. The final form of the scale comprises a total of 25 items grouped into 4 subfactors. Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was *calculated to be 0,929. As a result, it was concluded that with this scale it's possible to reliably measure the attitudes of undergraduate students at conservatories towards orchestra classes.
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