Characteristics of musically talented pupils at the elementary school level

The fundamental problem of the study was to examine the characteristics of musically talented pupils at the elementary level of primary school. The study of a musical talent is not a new problem in the field of giftedness and musical talent. This field has not been sufficiently researched and explained yet not even up to today. This is because there is a discrepancy at the theoretical level. This discrepancy is reflected in a number of partial conceptual and methodological solutions. The theoretical part deals with the current findings in the area of giftedness and musical talent. A large part of the 20th century can be characterized as an era where conceptions and tests of musical abilities were developed. In recent times a number of researches have been carried out in specific areas of this field, including the individual characteristics of the musical talent. In terms of a holistic, several areas approach to the study of musical talent, we have identified and dealt with six major areas of the characteristics of musical talent: musical abilities, musical creativity, musical performance, musical knowledge, musical activities and nonmusical characteristics. In connection with musical talent identification, this part presents a set of several musical tests and rating scales as well as a study of teacher’s nominations. The empirical part deals with some previously unexplored or insufficiently explained questions about the characteristics of musical talent. These questions cover the following topics: the latent structure of the characteristics, the level of expression of the characteristics, the consistency of teacher assessments, mutual correlations of individual areas of assessment and the existence of possible statistically significant difference in the expression of the characteristics according to attending of music school, gender and age. This is the first research that has been based on the identified six major areas of musically talented characteristics. These areas were used to survey the expression of the set of characteristics within the population of musically talented pupils between 6 and 10 years of age. For the purposes of this doctoral dissertation a questionnaire was designed which included teacher nominations and an evaluation of the characteristics of musically talented pupils using a 7-point grading scale. This system represents an innovation in the evaluation of characteristics because it allows the assessment of any deviations within the characteristics of a nominated pupil from a hypothetical average population. Based on the research findings presented in the theoretical section, we designed and included in the questionnaire a set of 32 characteristics, which is expected to be the most comprehensive evaluation of the characteristics of musical talent in the age group studied. The study involved 432 first-fifth grade primary school teachers from 90 Slovenian elementary schools. Each of the teachers nominated and evaluated one pupil whom they believed to be the most musically talented of all the pupils in their class. In this way, 432 of the most musically talented pupils were nominated and evaluated. The doctoral dissertation includes a scientific evaluation of numerous important findings on this research topic. The identified factorial structure of the characteristics is in accordance with the six areas of assessment of musical talent which we identified in the literature on this topic. All the characteristics of the musically talented pupils from our survey were expressed statistically significant as above average. The pupils who attend music schools, expressed statistically significant higher level of characteristics in all areas of the assessment of musical talent. Girls, compared to the boys, expressed statistically significant higher level of characteristics in four areas (musical abilities, musical performance, musical activities and nonmusical characteristics). The assessment areas of the characteristics of musically talented pupils (musical abilities, musical creativity, musical performance, musical knowledge, musical activities, and nonmusical characteristics) were correlated. The teacher’s overall assessment of the degree of musical talent of the pupils is in accordance with the assessment of specific areas of the assessment of musical talent and with the overall results of the assessment. Statistically significant increase in the expressed characteristics according to age was not confirmed. As a résumé of our theoretical and empirical research in the field of musical talent, we developed the Theoretic Model of Characteristics of Musical Talent and the Factor Model of Characteristics of Musical Talent and came up with a definition of musical talent. On the basis of the results of our findings, we propose numerous applicative possibilities and guidelines for practice