Achievement goal motivation and cognitive strategies as predictors of musical creativity among secondary school music students

The purpose of this study was to (a) establish the relationships among achievement goal motivation, cognitive learning strategies, and musical creativity; (b) determine the best predictors of musical creativity among the study variables. Participants ( N = 201) were secondary school music students in Kenya. Two self-report measures, the Achievement Goal Questionnaire-Revised (AGQ-R) and Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) were used in data collection for the independent variables. Musical creativity was measured by a creative composition task and evaluated according to four dimensions of musical craftsmanship, syntax, originality and aesthetic sensitivity. The results showed that musical creativity was positively correlated with mastery-approach goal and deep processing learning strategy but negatively correlated with surface processing strategy, performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals. The best predictor of musical creativity was deep processing strategy, β = .45, p < .01, which accounted for approximately 26% of the variance in participants’ musical creativity, followed by mastery-approach goal, β = .27, p < .01, R 2 =.09. The implication for music education is that music teachers should create conducive environments and adopt teaching strategies that nurture mastery-approach goal orientation and deep processing learning strategies to enhance musical creativity