Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Although music might not necessarily make someone smarter, there is a link between students in good music programs and standardized test performance, according to a report by a University of Kansas professor.
Christopher Johnson, professor of music and associate dean of the School of Fine Arts, completed a report, recently published in the Journal of Research in Music Education which said that the quality of music programs relates to participating students’ test scores.
Although there have been other studies that have looked at how students involved in music programs have scored on their standardized tests, Johnson said his was the first to study how the quality of the music program related to test scores.
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Johnson studied 4,739 elementary and junior high school students from across the country. He found that the students who participated in good music programs scored higher on standardized tests than students who participated in weaker programs or no programs at all.
The National Association for Music Education determined the quality of each program studied. The report, which Johnson worked on for about two years, gained attention even before its publication. In February, Johnson was invited to present his findings to members of Congress.
Johnson said the publication of the report comes at a crucial time, as people are speculating that some music programs around the country are being cut.
As for Johnson’s thoughts on the possible explanations for his research findings, he said that music demands discipline and intensity, skills that can transfer over to other aspects of students’ lives.
“There is a high level of contingency on being focused and concentrating and doing it right,” he said. “There’s also a need for making it perfect.”
Johnson compared music with other subjects to illustrate his point.
“If you’re in math, nobody around you cares if you get the right answer. If you don’t get it right it does not impact their lives at all. If you’re in band, it does impact their lives,” he said.
Patrick Kelly, fine arts specialist for Lawrence Public Schools, said that music requires students to go “back-and-forth” between the creative and logical sides of their brains.
“We know that music education makes a real difference in students’ learning,” Kelly said. “It’s great to see some research done on how much of a difference it makes.”
—Edited by Ben Smith
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