An examination of the relationship between candidates' attitudes, perceptions of self-efficacy, and success scores towards the "harmony and accompaniment" course in terms of various variables

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between prospective music teachers' attitudes towards harmony and accompaniment lessons, their self-efficacy perceptions, and harmony success scores in terms of various variables. 413 prospective music teachers who were studying at the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year undergraduate levels in the music education department of the faculty of education, fine arts education in the 2024-2025 academic year participated in the research. After the outlier analysis, the number of participants decreased to 385. Analysis was conducted on the data obtained from 385 valid participants. The "Attitude Scale Towards Harmony Lessons" developed by Bağcı (2020), the "Self-efficacy Perception Scale Towards Harmony Lessons" developed by Lehimler (2019), the demographic information form created by the researcher, and the harmony and accompaniment lesson knowledge level determination form developed by the researcher were used as data collection tools. The "Attitude Scale Towards Harmony Lesson" used in the study consists of a total of 34 items, 25 positive and 9 negative. Bağcı (2020) reported the Cronbach's alpha value of the scale he developed as 0.96. In this study; the Cronbach's alpha value of the attitude scale towards harmony lesson was reported by the researcher as 0.87. The "Self-efficacy Perception Scale Towards Harmony Lesson" used in the study consists of 28 items, 16 positive and 12 negative. Lehimler (2019) reported the Cronbach's alpha value of the scale as 0.96. In this study; the Cronbach's alpha value of the self-efficacy perception scale towards harmony lesson was reported by the researcher as 0.79. The harmony and accompaniment lesson knowledge level determination form used in the study was developed by the researcher and consists of 25 questions. To ensure internal consistency, the prepared form was sent to three experts, one lecturer who has taught harmony lessons and two faculty members, and it was converted into the final form in accordance with the opinions of the experts. The data collected with the scales, harmony and accompaniment course knowledge level determination form and demographic information form were analyzed with SPSS 20 statistical program. The obtained data were entered as data into the SPSS 20 program. The findings obtained as a result of the tests conducted to determine the relationships between the variables were analyzed descriptively. As a result of the statistical analyzes, it was concluded that the attitudes and self-efficacy perceptions of the candidates towards harmony and accompaniment lessons were high, while their harmony success scores were low; their attitudes, self-efficacy perceptions and harmony success scores differed statistically significantly according to class level, type of high school graduated, individual instrument type, time devoted to individual instrument, time devoted to piano study and the necessity of the harmony lesson; and that there was no statistically significant difference according to whether their major was piano or guitar. As a result of the Pearson correlation analysis; The relationships between the candidates' attitudes, self-efficacy perceptions, and harmony success scores were found to be positive and significant. The multiple linear regression analysis conducted to determine whether the attitudes and self-efficacy perceptions of music teacher candidates predicted harmony success scores revealed that the model was significant, with attitude and self-efficacy scores explaining 14% of the variance in harmony success scores. KEYWORDS: Attitude, Self-efficacy, Harmony, Success, Music Education.