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Abstract

Student engagement has been associated with a range of desirable outcomes in the undergraduate experience (Astin, 1993, Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005) and music participation has been shown to facilitate important personal and social development among its participants (Hallam, 2010). Despite this, no study has been conducted to evaluate the potential benefits of participation in one of the largest and most visible student organizations on campus: the college marching band. The purpose of this quantitative evaluation was to determine whether marching band students express distinctive patterns of engagement within their respective communities as compared with their non-band peers. Items and scales from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) were administered to marching band members (n=1,882) at 20 participating universities with National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division-I football programs. Data were compared with a sample of general undergraduate (non-band) responses (n=6,095) from the same institutions provided by the NSSE Institute. Findings suggested that band students are more engaged with diverse peers along racial, ethnic, political, ideological, and religious lines (p<.01; Cohen’s d=0.26) and they are more reflective in their learning as evident in their willingness to imagine another’s perspective and reevaluate their own views (p<.01; Cohen’s d=0.19). Compared with non-band peers, marching band members indicated greater personal social responsibility on an array of vectors (p<.01; Cohen’s d=0.36) including: developing a personal code of values and ethics, understanding people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds, understanding themselves, learning effectively on their own, voting in local or national elections, contributing to the welfare of their community, and solving complex real-world problems. After controlling for a range of pre-college and co-existing variables, marching band membership remained the strongest predictor of these desirable outcomes (β=0.172, p<.01).