The relationship between personality traits of selected Michigan high school band members and their selection of an instrument

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between personality traits of high school band members and their selection of an instrument. It was hypothesized that there would be no significant differences in personality traits according to either family or section of band membership. The subjects were 1,411 band students in grades 9 through 12. These students were members of the 26 high school bands from across Michigan which were randomly selected to participate in this investigation. Personality traits were assessed by having the subjects complete Burger's shortened version of Gough's California Psychological Inventory (CPI). Scores were tabulated for each instrumental section and family and were statistically compared through the use of the SPSS program for analysis of covariance. For the instrumental families the covariate was age and for the instrumental sections both age and gender were covariates. Significance was set at the .05 level of confidence