Selecting musical talent

Abstract

The investigation was made to determine the prognostic value of the Seashore Measures of Musical Talent for students entering a school of music. It also attempted to determine the value of intelligence tests (Terman Group Test of Mental Ability and Thurstone Psychological Examination) in predicting success in various courses required of students of the School of Music of the North Carolina College for Women. The tests were given to 59 girls who entered the School of Music in September, 1922. The criteria used were marks in music courses and the relative length of time students remained in college. It was found that partial correlation of applied music marks and Seashore test scores, when intelligence is held constant, is .175, whereas the correlation between applied music marks and intelligence test scores is .423. The conclusions reached in this investigation are: (1) the validity of the Seashore tests when measured by success in music as expressed in school marks is very low (r = .312); (2) scores on the Seashore tests, taken singly or as a whole, show practically no relationship to students' abilities in musical performance; (3) intelligence tests gave a better prediction (r = .423) of success in music than did the Seashore tests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)