College Students' Attitudes Toward Music

The purposes of this study were to examine relationships between three listener characteristics (college major, sex, school music performance experience) and college students' (N = 300) attitudes toward nine types and styles of music. Significant differences (p < .05) were found in favor of music majors (n = 100) toward classical and contemporary classical music, and in favor of non-music majors (n = 200) toward rock music. Females expressed significantly more favorable attitudes than males toward country and spiritual music. Rap received significantly higher ratings from male music majors than from female music majors, and music major and non-music major males gave significantly higher ratings to rock than did their female counterparts. Subjects with high levels of school music ensemble experience exhibited significantly more positive altitudes toward jazz than did those with less experience. In addition, females with high levels of school music performance experience expressed significantly less favorable attitudes toward rap than did less experienced females, and female non-music majors expressed significantly more positive attitudes than male non-music majors toward classical, spiritual, and country music.