Use of digital audio workstations in music education to develop creative thinking and increase self-efficacy

Digital audio workstations can be used to develop creative thinking in music students while practicing music production. This research aimed to study the effectiveness of the Pyramix software for the development of creative thinking and musical self-efficacy of Chinese music students. It enrolled 200 students with a mean age of 21.8 years. The effectiveness was determined through the comparison of pre-and post-test results in the experimental and control groups. Self-report measures were employed in the study: the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) for assessing creative thinking and the Musical Performance Self-Efficacy Scale (MPSES) for evaluating musical self-efficacy. In the experimental group, there was an increase in creative thinking in all five subscales during the post-test: originality, elaboration, abstractness, and resistance to premature completion increased by 19.26%, 18.23%, 11.04%, 10.40%, and 15.09%, respectively. The differences were significant and confirmed the effectiveness of using stations to develop creative thinking. However, their use did not have a positive effect on musical self-efficacy in terms of mastery experience, vicarious experience, and verbal/social persuasion. Intergroup differences were not significant; only the physiological state significantly increased by 8.72. This research is significant because it gives information on the effect of digital audio workstations in music education on the development of students’ creative-thinking skills through the contribution to existing music knowledge and literature. The findings may be of interest to researchers and educational institution managers, who are interested in enhancing creativity skills.