Abstract
This quantitative, quasi-experimental study of 44 undergraduate
entrepreneurship students employed a pre-post comparison group design to
examine whether music-based interventions could impact the Big Five
personality factors of Openness to Experience and its aspects of Intellect and
Openness, and Conscientiousness and its aspects of Industriousness and
Orderliness as well as Creative Self-Efficacy. The study further examined how
participants in the experimental group processed and made sense of their
experiences in the music-based interventions across three perspectives: Adult
Learning, Constructive Developmental, and Creativity theory.
Openness to Experiences, Conscientiousness, and Creative Self-Efficacy
were chosen as variables due to their relationship to creativity and creative
output. Music was selected as the basis of the interventions based on the
demonstrated clinical and evidence-based connection of music and personality,
as well as its use in clinical contexts.
The findings revealed a significant decrease in the Industriousness aspect
of Conscientiousness in the experimental group. In the control group, they
revealed a significant increase in the Orderliness aspect of Conscientiousness.
Neither Openness to Experiences and its aspects, nor Creative-Self Efficacy
were affected with any significance by the music-making interventions. Though
overall satisfaction with the music-making experiences was high, there was no
evidence that participants in the experimental group thought differentially about
the experience, or processed the experiences discretely from the Constructive
Developmental, Adult Learning, or Creativity perspectives. Findings provide
evidence that music-based interventions have the potential to impact certain
aspects of personality.