The Role of Academic Engagement in Students of the Music Education Major

Abstract

Academic engagement is a fundamental concept for explaining academic performance in university students, especially in programs such as teacher training degree, which prepares students for a highly vocational profession. Likewise, the current system for training music education teachers through the major raises some ambiguities regarding the commitment of these students. So, our objective is to compare the academic engagement and some facilitating and hindering variables of it, in students of this specialization with students from other teacher degree programs, with the aim of proposing actions that result in a greater use of these studies. For this purpose, a prospective exploratory study of a cross-sectional nature was carried out, combining descriptive and correlational methodology, with data obtained from different questionnaires. The sample consisted of 610 students from the University of Barcelona. The most significant results that differentiate both groups are, on the one hand, in the facilitating variables of academic engagement (coping strategies, and academic motivation), as well as in the hindering variables (perceived stress and psychological distress). With all of this, actions are proposed to improve and complement the tutorial action plan of music education teachers, and, consequently, improve the academic engagement of these students.