Effects of music education on academic performance in elementary students

Music in High Schools

Psychology Research Project

Examining the Effects of Music Education in Various Students

Children are often encouraged to undertake creative activities in order to improve their imagination and achieve a balance between studying and relaxing. One creative activity is to partake in music education. Music is one field in which a student can be as creative as he or she desires, for there is no limit placed on how much or how loudly one can play his or her instrument. Music classes, though structure, encourage these facets, and keep students on their creative toes, and therefore are vitally important for the development of children.

There have been many studies on this topic, especially in light of many schools cutting their music education programs. Most of these studies have proven, beyond a doubt, that music education helps students in many ways, including with development of certain parts of the brain. This research aims to describe these studies in further detail, as well as to find the relationship between the number of music lesson that students take and academic performance. If a positive relationship exists, as the studies state, there are possible chances to design lessons that effectively help students improve their grades. This design may enhance the field of psychology as well, specifically by finding the association between learning creative actions and one's ability to memorize information and solve problems.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis needing to be tested here is: "The more music lessons students take per week, the better these students' grades." The research method is descriptive, allowing the researcher to determine the strength of the relationship between taking music lesson and academic performance of students. A survey will be conducted in four local elementary schools. These four schools are close to each other so it is more convenient and faster for data collection.

Research and Survey Design/Method

At each school, 200 surveys will be handed out to the students, who are randomly picked from different classes. The subjects therefore include students from five grades: one, two, three, four and five. This gives more variability in the response. Furthermore, as the sample is randomized, the answers are more likely to approach the true data. The time to conduct the survey is break time between classes and lunchtime when students are free and more willing to finish the survey.

In order to meet ethical requirements of psychological research, the experiment will be reviewed by an institutional review board in order to protect the subjects from possible harm. Secondly, all the children will have been informed in advance about the nature of the study any risk of harm it may bring. Thus, there will be no physical harms to the subjects. Thirdly, all the individual data from the survey will be kept confidential. Only the summaries for groups of subjects will be publicized. Lastly, at the end of the research, all the participants will supplied with full informational booklets.

The survey contains a series of 9 questions, rendered below:

1. What grade are you in?

2. Do you take music lessons? Answer: Y or N (If yes, the students is asked to question 3. If no, the students is asked to skip question 3 and continue with question 4).

3. How many music lessons do you take per week?

4. Do you find it easy to concentrate?

5. How long can you study with no rest?

6. How do you memorize your lesson? Choose one: visually - auditory

7. What is your average grade?

8. Do you have (a) tutor(s)?

9. What subjects do you like best and what in what subjects do you perform best?

In the same school, there are always groups of students that are different from each other in terms of socioeconomic factors. In fact, children who take music lessons are often from wealthier families that can afford the tuition fees for these lessons and thus these children's parents are often more dedicated in terms of time to their children's studying.

It is also important to mention that these children often perform better because they have access to more sources of knowledge such as private tutors, who can help them solve difficult problems and prepare them for lessons before classes. Meanwhile, those that do not take music lessons may come from less wealthy families and may have parents who must work hard and who may have no time to take care of the children. The children may, therefore, have to work by themselves. This study will aim to see whether there is, according to this description, indeed, a positive relationship between music lessons and academic performance.

Literature Review

The first source to be examined here for the purposes of verifying the truth contained in the hypothesis presented above is an article from Science Daily. The article in this publication presents a study conducted at Long Island University by Joseph Piro and Camilo Ortiz. This study was conducted for the purposes of finding out whether music education can truly have an effect on cognition and aimed to shed light "on the question of the potential of music to enhance school performance in language and literacy." (Science Daily, 2009)

Having stated its purpose, the study then aims to see whether this hypothesis, so similar to the one presented above, is true. Therefore, the study focuses on two elementary schools in the U.S., one of which routinely trains children in music, and one that does not do so. The sample study numbers 46 and 57 students, respectively. The authors also only study children who play/do not play the piano, and measure the advancement only in the fields of vocabulary and verbal sequencing, as partly stated above. The authors continue,

"Several studies have reported positive associations between music education and increased abilities in non-musical (e.g., linguistic, mathematical, and spatial) domains in children… There are similarities in the way that individuals interpret music and language… Tt would not be unreasonable to expect that some processing networks for music and language behaviors, namely reading, located in both hemispheres of the brain would overlap." (Piro and Ortiz, 2009)

With a solid base for the study, the authors are also careful to denote that both of the schools chosen for the study have in their curriculum balanced literacy programmes "that integrate skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening." (Piro and Ortiz, 2009) Furthermore, the authors denote that participants were individually tested, and results were analyzed only at the end of the school year period. Even so, the results clearly showed that those students exposed to music education had "significantly better vocabulary and verbal sequencing scores than did the non-music-learning control group," and thus the authors conclude that this "provides evidence to support the increasingly common practice of 'educators incorporating a variety of approaches, including music, in their teaching practice in continuing efforts to improve reading achievement in children'." (Science Daily, 2009)

The study presented above seems to give the positive answer necessitated to the hypothesis of this paper as well, and the pieces of literature to follow will only further ascertain this truth. The next source to be presented is a simple, teacher-made website that gives 12 simple benefits of music education. These are, in the order in which they are presented, rendered below:

1. Musical training, especially during developmental years, contributes to brain development in the areas of language and reasoning. The source states, "Recent studies have clearly indicated that musical training physically develops the part of the left side of the brain known to be involved with processing language, and can actually wire the brain's circuits in specific ways. Linking familiar songs to new information can also help imprint information on young minds." (Cincinnati Public Radio (CPR), 2012)

2. The source also finds a "causal link between music and spatial intelligence" and states that "this kind of intelligence, by which one can visualize various elements that should go together, is critical to the sort of thinking necessary for everything from solving advanced mathematics problems to being able to pack a book-bag with everything that will be needed for the day." (CPR, 2012)

3. Thirdly, the source claims that students who undertake such creative expressions such as music, will be creative and imaginative later in life.

4. The source also claims, "Recent studies show that students who study the arts are more successful on standardized tests such as the SAT. They also achieve higher grades in high school." (CPR, 2012)

5. Furthermore, this article also states that music can open the door to other cultures, thereby making students understanding and sympathetic towards all kinds of peoples.

6. Students of music, it is noted, are aware of what makes great work, as opposed to simply mediocre work.

7. The source also claims that through music study, students "learn the value of sustained effort to achieve excellence and the concrete rewards of hard work." (CPR, 2012)

8. Music study, it is further stated, also enhances teamwork skills and discipline.

9. In addition, "music provides children with a means of self-expression… Self-esteem is a by-product of this self-expression." (CPR, 2012)

10. Music study also develops skills necessary in the workplace. According to CPR, music "focuses on "doing," as opposed to observing, and teaches students how to perform, literally, anywhere in the world." (CPR, 2012)

11. Music performance also teaches risk-taking, and imparts the confidence needed to be successful in such enterprises.

12. Lastly, according to this source, arts education exposes children to the incomparable. (CPR, 2012)

The last two sources to be presented here both aim to make the point of how music education in vital in making children successful. In the first article, the author argues for expansion of music programs, and cites various California studies that demonstrate the benefits of music education. According to this source,

"In an earlier study, the same researchers compared the relative benefit of music vs. computer lessons on two demographically similar groups of preschoolers. The results? Kids who spent eight months in front of a piano keyboard improved their scores on a puzzle-solving test; kids who spent the same amount of time in front of a computer keyboard saw no gains." (Taylor, 2012)

In the last source, we see a similar point made. The importance of music education according to this author is not just supposed, but proven time and again, with more music lessons evidently showing a positive correlation with grades, especially in younger children. This author claims that music not only helps creativity and imagination in children, but also allows them for modes of self-expression that may otherwise be done in negative circumstances, or through drugs and alcohol, especially in older children cases. This author also ascertains that music programs certainly help students perform better, for they teach better concentration skills, and instill important life values in these students. (Malburg, 2012)

Works Cited (in order of citation):

1. Science Daily Staff. (2009). Music Education Can Help Children Improve Reading Skills. Science Daily. Retrieved from .

2. Piro, J.M. & Ortiz, C. (2009). The effect of piano lessons on the vocabulary and verbal sequencing skills of primary grade students. Journal Psychology of Music, 16th March 2009.