Who should study music education? A vocational personality approach

Abstract

The main purpose of the current study was to examine the utility and usefulness of Holland's Theory of Personalities in Work Environments to understand the match between personality and the desire for music education. The participants included 99 pre-service music teachers in Turkey. The findings revealed that the pre-service music teachers were, foremost, artistic. To a lesser degree, they were social and conventional. In addition, significant relationships existed between personality types and satisfaction with studying in the department of music education. Based on these findings, it seems that Holland's Theory provides a useful framework for understanding music pre-service teachers' satisfaction with studying music education. Future researchers may use this theory with practicing music teachers to examine its explanatory and predictive power in the workplace.