Associations between music teachers' Big Five personality traits and their stereotypical beliefs about students gifted for music

Teachers' beliefs about gifted students may influence instructional practices and students' educational development. While previous research has focused primarily on beliefs about intellectually gifted students, little is known about beliefs regarding students gifted for music and their relation to teacher characteristics. The present experimental vignette-based online study investigated whether music teachers' Big Five personality traits are associated with their beliefs about students gifted for music. A sample of 392 (prospective) music teachers evaluated a fictitious student presented in a case scenario on achievement-related, socio-emotional, and behavioral characteristics to assess their beliefs. To this end, the student's musical success in a well-established music competition was manipulated to elicit teachers' assumptions about whether the student was musically gifted or of average musical ability (post-hoc classification). Multivariate regression analyses with teachers' personality traits as predictors, students' ascribed musical ability level as a moderator, and teachers' beliefs about students' characteristics as outcomes showed that teachers' beliefs were primarily associated with students' ascribed musical ability level. Compared to average-ability students, students gifted for music received higher ratings of intellectual abilities, musical abilities, and performance and motivation. In addition, subsequent univariate analyses showed that higher teacher agreeableness was associated with higher social skills ratings for average-ability students, whereas higher teacher conscientiousness was associated with higher intellectual ability ratings for students gifted for music. No significant interaction effects emerged for teachers' openness, extraversion, or neuroticism. These findings suggest that teachers' beliefs about students gifted for music are primarily associated with students' perceived ability level, while teacher personality traits show small additional associations.