Continued explorations of the psychometric properties of the Musician’s Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (MAAQ).

Citation

Juncos, D. G., Osborne, M. S., Taylor, J., & Zenobi, D. (2023, 17 August). Continued explorations of the psychometric properties of the Musician’s Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (MAAQ). Paper presented at the International Symposium on Performance Science 2023, 17-20 August. Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland. https://doi.org/10.26188/24160797

Background: Improved Psychological flexibility (PF) is the primary outcome variable within Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Acceptance and Commitment Coaching (ACC) approaches. PF is defined as the ability to think and feel openly, while attending voluntarily to the present moment and moving oneself towards life experiences that bring more meaning and value, both within and outside of music performances. Thus far, no measure of PF exists within a music context, rather, a more general PF measure has been used in previous ACT research with musician participants - the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II). At ISPS’ 2021 conference, we presented data on a newly created measure to measure PF with musicians - the Musician’s Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (MAAQ) - showing it had robust psychometric properties and was more strongly associated with outcomes of interest for student musicians than the AAQ-II, i.e., grades on an adjudicated music exam, flow experiences in music performance and practice.

Aims: We continue to explore the psychometric and predictive properties of key mental health variables using the MAAQ with two new samples: a professional sample of international vocalists and instrumentalists (N =107), and an Australian sample (N=81) of musicians at a tertiary performance training academy.

Methods: The sample of international vocalists and instrumentalists participated in an online survey which included the MAAQ, other questionnaires (AAQ-II, Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory, Frost Multidimentional Perfectionism Scale, Dispositional Flow Scale-2), questions about the extent of their avoidant behaviors during performances and practice, and demographic questions. The Australian sample completed an online health and wellbeing survey including the MAAQ, questions on demographic characteristics, health status; exercise frequency; practice frequency; musculoskeletal playing related issues; level of pain and perceived risk factors; physical and mental ability to play in practice/rehearsal; the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-II adapted for music performance; the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; and the Mental Health Continuum – Short Form to measure wellbeing in everyday life.

Results: Results of analyses that further establish the MAAQ’s psychometric and predictive properties will be presented for both samples.

Conclusions: The results from both samples will be discussed in relation to one another and in relation to the student samples from ISPS 2021. We will also address how the MAAQ performs across all samples studied thus far.