Critical Judgment as the Primary Driver of Musical Identity Development in Secondary School Students

<p class="ql-align-justify">This research aimed to determine the predictive influence of identification, stimulation, sensitivity, and judgment on musical identity in secondary school students from public institutions in Chiclayo, Peru. A quantitative approach with a nonexperimental cross-sectional design and explanatory scope was adopted. The population consisted of 1,149 students distributed across five public educational institutions in Chiclayo, from which a sample of 871 participants was selected through stratified sampling by institution, grade, and section. Data collection was carried out via the Musical Identity Questionnaire, adapted from the Fuentes instrument, which is composed of twenty-three items distributed in four theoretical dimensions, and is evaluated via a Likert scale of three options. The statistical analysis was implemented by means of structural equation models based on partial least squares (PLS-SEM), evaluating both the measurement model and the structural model according to standard procedures. The results confirmed the four hypotheses, showing positive and significant effects of all the predictor variables on musical identity. Judgment emerged as the most influential predictor, followed by stimulation, identification, and sensitivity, with considerable effect sizes in all cases. These findings provide empirically validated foundations for the design of educational interventions that optimize musical development in educational contexts with structural limitations, establish methodological precedents for future multifactorial research in music education, and contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge on adolescent musical identity formation.</p>