Music + Math = Higher Scores

 

You have the kid who tells you they can't work unless they are listening to music.  I have a few who insist on listening to music but it seems as if they often spend more time looking for the "right" tune than they spend doing work. Well that might be true. A scientist looked through 55 studies involving 78,000 students conducted over the last 50 years to see what combining math with music does. She also searched various academic databases on the same topic.

There were three type of musical intervention mentioned in this analysis.  The first were standard music lessons where students listen to, compose, or sing.  The second is instrumental where students learn to play one or more instruments either as part of a band or individually. The last is when music is integrated into the math lesson.

As far as general methodologies, tests were given to students at the beginning of the intervention and again at the end and then the gain in test scores were compared to students who did not participate in the intervention. When music was included as part of the math lesson or as separate lessons, scores increased over time.  In fact, 73% of the students who had lessons that integrated music and math improved significantly as compared with those who had none.  

In addition, 55% of the students who had music lessons improved while 68% of the students who learned to play a musical instrument improved over the students who didn't do either. Furthermore, the results indicate that music has a bigger impact on elementary students who are learning basic concepts or learning arithmetic. This may be because certain core concepts such as fractions and ratios are common to both music and math.

Math and music also have much in common such as abstract thought, quantitive reasoning, and using symbols symmetrically. Integrating music into math may be so effective because this type of lesson allows students to establish a connection between math and music while providing opportunities to explore, interpret, and understand math.  Since these lessons may be more fun,. students experience less math anxiety. 

Unfortunately, the author of this analysis was unable to look at how factors such as gender, socio-economic status, and length that music was studied effected everything. So learning to play an instrument and having general music lessons helped improve overall test scores, integrating music into math lessons had the biggest effect.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.