Luther College student Abigail Toussaint from Decorah concludes summer research on music performance anxiety

Luther College student Abigail Toussaint and faculty advisor Dr. Loren Toussaint spent the summer researching "Music Performance Anxiety and Music Self-Efficacy" as part of Luther College's Summer Student/Faculty Collaborative Research Program, and the results are out.

According to their first survey which asked 436 participants about their performance anxiety experiences and coping methods, different age groups were found to have different levels of anxiety. Adult musicians had the lowest performance anxiety level, and undergraduate and graduate music students had the highest. Music educators and middle school/high school students had average levels of performance anxiety.

Furthermore, auditions were found to be the most anxiety-inducing performance situations while large ensemble concerts were found to be the least.

The first survey also asked participants to rank coping mechanisms. The most effective were "Focus on your breathing" and "Accept it is okay to make mistakes."

In the second and final survey, 65 participants were surveyed for self-efficacy levels. According to Toussaint's findings, self-efficacy is "the belief in one's ability to complete the task at hand and utilize their skill set in future tasks." Toussaint notes, "In our study, after educating participants about various coping strategies, their self-efficacy increased no matter what level of music performance anxiety they experience."

Toussaint says, "Music performance anxiety can be crippling for musicians of all ages. However, this research offers hopeful conclusions that reassures musicians of the potential to play without fear."