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Literature Spotlight with Dana Greaves

Hello to all of you lovely people reading! I hope you have been enjoying/have enjoyed Easter break. It’s Dana here to highlight an interesting article that I have read recently. This month I will be discussing my thoughts and opinions on a study conducted by Draper & Dingle (2021) titled: “It’s Not the Same”: A Comparison of the Psychological Needs Satisfied by Musical Group Activities in Face to Face and Virtual Modes (which you can read here)


In summary, the study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and used questionnaires to ask participants about the experience of bringing face to face (F2F) activity groups online and its impact on their psychosocial health. The aim of this research was to see if musical activities (specifically singing, instrumental, and dance) could adequately adapt and provide the same benefits in a virtual space. To measure and analyse the psychosocial benefits of these activities they used the Group Identification Scale by Doosje et al. (1995), an adapted version of the 7-item psychological need satisfaction scale by Kyprianides and Easterbrook (2020), and the 12-item short form health survey (SF-12) by Ware et al. (1996) (Draper & Dingle, 2021, pp. 4-5). The researchers compared these measures by having the participants fill out these inventories reflecting upon their F2F and online musical activities. The results indicated that although participants had higher group identification and psychological need satisfaction in F2F compared to online regardless of the musical activity, the scores were still relatively high for online musical activity. This may suggest that online groups are effective at maintaining the psychosocial benefits found in F2F groups. Though it may not be the same, online musical groups can still provide many of the significant social functions found in F2F groups despite issues with maintaining the musical elements.


I found this article interesting because it introduced me to the Group Identification Scale which might be implemented into my own and my colleagues research projects. I also found that the results showing an insignificant psychosocial difference between the musical activities instrumental, choir, and dance was surprising due instrumentalists having a more difficult time adapting to virtual spaces (Draper & Dingle, 2021, p.6). This could suggest that the psychosocial elements that remained in the virtual spaces are not affected by the ability or quality of the musical activity itself.

Something to keep in mind regarding this study is that it was focused on the switch from F2F to online. This implies that scores of those who solely participate in online musical groups may be different than those who had switched. At this point in time, I have not seen any studies that explore the effects of virtual musical participation on psychological health and wellbeing without the participants comparing the experience to F2F musical activity. Would the results be different for people who have only experienced virtual musical activities? Attempting to separate the two might prove to be a formidable task due to the social constructions and expectations people generally have about how to “musick”. Furthermore, in person collaboration has traditionally been a key component to musical activity and its production. So, if virtual musical activity will always be compared to “the real thing”, how significantly does that comparison skew how we interpret that data? It is a question I have been wondering as I think and plan my own research. I would love to know if you have any thoughts or comments which you can leave below.


Until next time!

-DG
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