Graduation Year

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Music

Major Professor

C. Victor Fung, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Jennifer A. Bugos, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Clint Randles, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Jennifer Wolgemuth, Ph.D.

Keywords

piano, Deliberate Practice, Cognition, Effectiveness

Abstract

Growth mindset is often theorized to support persistence, strategic learning, and reflective regulation, yet little is known about whether growth mindset differentiates how expert pianists organize and evaluate their practice strategies. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine whether expert pianists’ growth mindset beliefs relate to multidimensional practice strategy effectiveness and usage and to metacognitive indicators of adaptive regulation, including strategy adaptability, self-monitoring effectiveness, confidence in strategy selection, and the illusion of fluency (feeling well prepared in practice yet underperforming in performance). Participants were 90 expert pianists (piano faculty members at North American universities classified as Research 1) who completed an online survey.

Participants completed the three-item Theories of Intelligence Scale (TIS) (6-point scale) to assess growth mindset, the 34-item Practice Strategy Usage Measure (PSUM) (5-point scale) to assess practice strategies in two parallel ratings—perceived effectiveness (PSUM-PE) and use frequency (PSUM-UF)—and four additional metacognitive variables (illusion of fluency, self-monitoring effectiveness, confidence in strategy selection, and strategy adaptability, including two components: Adaptive Strategy Regulation and Retention & Performance Readiness). Reliability analyses (Cronbach’s alpha) evaluated internal consistency of all scales. Pearson correlations examined associations among growth mindset, PSUM factors, metacognitive indicators, and experiential variables (years of formal piano learning, years of piano teaching, weekly practice hours). Multiple regression models assessed the contributions of experiential variables to PSUM outcomes and metacognitive regulation indicators. Qualitative responses to the illusion-of-fluency prompt were coded thematically to contextualize how experts interpret practice–performance discrepancies.

Descriptive results indicated high endorsement of growth mindset (M = 4.17, SD = 1.36). Strategy adaptability component scores were also high: Adaptive Strategy Regulation (M = 4.30, SD = 0.82) and Retention & Performance Readiness (M = 4.49, SD = 0.65). Experiential background characteristics were: years of formal piano learning (M = 31.76, SD = 14.57), years of piano teaching (M = 26.49, SD = 13.16), and weekly practice time in hours (M = 16.62, SD = 7.32). Correlational results showed that growth mindset was not related to the PSUM strategy system (PSUM-PE: r = −.10 - .07; PSUM-UF: r = −.07 - .14; all p > .05) and was not related to either adaptability component (Adaptive Strategy Regulation: r = −.01, p > .05; Retention & Performance Readiness: r = .04, p > .05). In contrast, experiential variables displayed clearer structure in expert regulation. For example, weekly practice time was positively associated with PSUM-UF of Recording and Feedback (r = .32, p < .01), Problem-solving (r = .24, p < .05), and Error Correction (r = .23, p < .05), and years of teaching experience were positively associated with self-monitoring effectiveness (r = .30, p < .01), confidence in strategy selection (r = .34, p = .001), and Retention & Performance Readiness (r = .31, p < .01). Regression results further clarified these experience-linked patterns: weekly practice time predicted several monitoring- and correction-intensive PSUM-UF domains (e.g., Recording and Feedback: R² = .69, β = .78, p < .001; Silent Practice: R² = .16, β = .31, p = .003; Error Correction: R² = .21, β = .35, p < .001), whereas perceived effectiveness judgments were most strongly explained in Self-regulation and Monitoring (R² = .56), with contributions from years of formal study (β = .21, p = .01), years of teaching (β = .53, p < .001), and weekly practice time (β = .25, p < .001). For metacognitive outcomes, years of formal study predicted self-monitoring effectiveness (R² = .12, β = .34, p < .01) and confidence in strategy selection (R² = .12, β = .34, p < .01), while years of teaching predicted Adaptive Strategy Regulation (R² = .23, β = .30, p = .01) and years of formal study predicted Retention & Performance Readiness (R² = .09, β = .33, p = .01).

The illusion of fluency emerged as a common expert experience. Ratings clustered around the midpoint (M = 2.88, SD = 1.09; median = 3): only 7.8% reported “never,” while 60.0% endorsed the upper half of the scale (3–5) and 25.6% endorsed high levels (4–5). Thematic analysis of 68 optional narratives indicated that illusion-of-fluency episodes most often reflected transfer fragility under performance conditions rather than simple lack of preparation. The most frequent themes were situational/physiological perturbations (24, 35.3%), emotional arousal and appraisal (23, 33.8%), memory/retrieval vulnerability (20, 29.4%), program load/time constraints (19, 27.9%), and practice-based miscalibration (17, 25.0%), with additional themes including attentional interference/automaticity breakdown (12, 17.6%), recalibration strategies such as mock performance and recording-based verification (10, 14.7%), and a minority reframing/non-endorsement perspective (1, 1.5%). The results characterize expert pianists’ practice as an evidence-oriented system in which experience-shaped regulation and metacognitive calibration (especially transfer-focused verification) more consistently explain differences in practice organization and performance readiness than broad malleability beliefs alone.

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