The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between students’
self-assessments of their musical compositions and experts’ assessments.
College students (N = 54) who were enrolled in a music fundamentals course
for elementary education students participated in this study. Each student completed
three composition-performance assignments using a soprano recorder. Upon completing
each assignment, students were asked to self-administer controlling and
informational feedback. The third set of compositions was used as a measure of the
students’ compositional creativity. Independent judges reached acceptable
levels of agreement in assessing compositional creativity and other dimensions
allowing students to be placed into high-, middle-, and low-creativity groups. The
students’ informational feedback was analyzed and classified. Chi-square
analyses of the students’ informational feedback yielded statistically
significant differences among the three creativity groups. Students in the high- and
middle-creativity groups were more likely to cite experimentation and express
optimism than students in the low creativity group (p < .05); the
high- and middle-creativity groups were also more likely to cite eight or more
factors in their self-assessments (p < .001). Students in the
high-creativity group were more likely to employ an expressive intent in their title
and engage in critical analyses than students in the middle- and low-creativity
groups (p < .05). There was no significant correlation between the
judges’ evaluations and the students’ controlling feedback.
