In a study conducted by the Hashemite University of Jordan, a group of researchers were interested in looking at if there is “any significant difference between the academic achievement of experimental group students (listened to music during instruction) and control group students (no music during instruction)?” (Hailat et al, 2008). 258 7th grade students were enrolled in 8 sections and “the participants were divided into two groups: control group with 128 students (65 males enrolled in two sections, and 63 females enrolled in two sections) and experimental group with 130 students (62 males enrolled in two sections, and 68 females enrolled in two sections).” (Hailat et al, 2008). The experimental groups were randomly selected, and they listened to music during instruction for three weeks, “students listen to a piece of curriculum-related music focused on the art and vocational unit for 2-3 minutes during instruction.” (Hailat et al, 2008). To quantitatively measure the effectiveness of music instruction during class, the researchers asked the students to do “a test (the Social Studies Test) that contained 19 multiple-choice questions. This test was administered to students as a pre-test and post-test to measure its impact on their academic achievement.” (Hailat et al, 2008).
After the pre and post socials studies test scores were analyzed, “the results revealed that students who listened to music during instruction had greater academic achievement compared to students who received traditional instruction.” (Hailat et al, 2008). Thus the final verdict of this paper is that music should be used during the lecture to keep the students’ attention and that “listening to music during instruction is valuable for all 7*-grade students— combining the learning of history with other methods of instruction has a profound effect on improving students' academic achievement.” (Hailat et al, 2008).
However, this study has certain limitations, they only looked at the social studies subject and it was a multiple-choice test where the pre-test and post-test were exactly the same. It also does not take into consideration the IQ of the control group students or the working memory capacity of the students.
Reference:
Hailat, S., Khasawneh, S., Shargawi, S., Jawarneh, M., & Al-Shudaifat, S. (2008). Human resource education: does listening to music during instruction affect Jordanian secondary students' academic achievement? International Journal of Applied Educational Studies, 2(1).
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