Extracurricular musical activities. Motivational impact

This study aims to contribute to the identification of factors that can improve school motivation and academic success. Therefore we intend to investigate the results of student participation in extracurricular musical activities as a motivational tool in the study of classical guitar within the context of vocational music education. This topic has already been studied by several authors in different contexts in most cases with considerably positive results. Some studies have revealed that student participation in extracurricular activities increases their motivation and in certain cases also their academic success. Sixteen guitar students from a music conservatory participated in this study. During one academic year extracurricular musical activities were developed for these students. It was found that to a certain extent some students showed higher levels of motivation albeit at different levels after participating in the aforementioned activities. In certain cases academic success increased as did the students' own desire to progress to a higher level of guitar study.