Adaptation and validation of the Deliberate Practice in Music Inventory for child musicians

Deliberate Practice (DP) is a fundamental aspect of musical expertise. Measuring DP in child musicians could provide useful information about its role in determining progress towards higher levels of expertise. This study aims to develop and validate a standardized instrument for measuring the level of DP that child musicians exhibit in their practice routine. The questionnaire is intended to be used by music teachers, parents and child musicians. The Deliberate Practice in Music Inventory (DPMI, Passarotto et al., 2022) for adult musicians was revised and simplified for the use with children by experienced musicians and music educators. The resulting child DPMI (cDPMI) consisted of 11 items, grouped into a main scale and four subscales. Analyses of data collected from a sample of primary school children, their parents, and teachers confirmed the appropriateness of the factor structure of the new questionnaire with good fit indices. The cDPMI main scale and subscales showed acceptable internal consistency in the parents and teachers groups, but internal consistency indices fell below the acceptable level in the children group. The cDPMI was invariant across groups of users (i.e., children, parents, and teachers) and times of measurement. Finally, the cDPMI main scale and subscales were significantly correlated with related personality traits and self-regulatory behaviors, suggesting its convergent validity. In conclusion, the new cDPMI is a standardized and valid instrument for measuring DP in child musicians, although it appears to be particularly suitable as an external evaluation tool for parents and teachers and less suitable as a self-assessment tool for primary school children.