Music Education Facts
Music Students Are Scoring.
Music students are outperforming non-music students on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). College-bound seniors with coursework or experience in music performance scored 52 points higher on the verbal portion and 37 points higher on the math portion of the SAT than students with no coursework or experience in the arts.
Source:
The College Board
September 1997
Music Is Beating Computers at Enhancing Early Childhood Development.
Music training, specifically piano instruction is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children's abstract reasoning skills necessary for learning math and science. Learning music at an early age causes long-term enhancement of spatial- temporal reasoning.
Source:
Frances Rauscher, Ph.D.
Gordon Shaw, Ph.D.
University of California, Irvine
1997
Music Enhances Linguistic Skills.
Music -- specifically song -- is one of the best training grounds for babies learning to recognize the tones that add up to spoken language.
Source:
Sandra Trehub
University of Toronto
1997
America Is A Country Full Of Music-Makers.
113 million, or 53%, of Americans over the age of 12 are current or former music makers.
Source:
1997 "American Attitudes Towards Music" poll
conducted by the Gallup Organization
Scientists, Therapists Agree: Music Heals More Than Just The Spirit.
Music benefits older adults. Active music-making positively affects the biology and behavior of Alzheimer's patients.
Source:
Music Making and Wellness Project
a study conducted at the University of Miami
Studying Music Strengthens Students' Academic Performance.
Rhode Island studies have indicated that sequential, skill-building instruction in art and music integrated with the rest of the curriculum can greatly improve children's performance in reading and math.
Source:
"Learning Improved by Arts Training"
by Martin Gardiner, Alan Fox, Faith Knowles, and Donna Jeffrey,
Nature, May 23, 1996
Music and Spatial Task Performance: A Causal Relationship.
Music lessons, and even simply listening to music, can enhance spatial reasoning performance, a critical higher-brain function necessary to perform complex tasks including mathematics.
Source:
Frances Rauscher, Ph.D.
Gordon Shaw, Ph.D.
University of California, Irvine, 1994
The Mozart Effect
The Mozart Effect surfaced about four years ago when research uncovered that adults who listened to music of complexity for ten minutes or so experienced temporary increases in their spatial 10 scores.
Source:
Frances Rauscher,Ph.D.
Gordon Shaw, Ph.D.
University of California, Irvine
1993-1994
Music Teacher Expertise is a Critical Factor in Student Learning.
Research indicates that teachers of all subjects -- including music -- who are more experienced and
educated are more effective in the classroom. Consequently t students learn more from them.
Source:
Paying for Public Education: New Evidence on How and Why Money Matters
by Ronald Ferguson, 1991
Compiled by Music Educators National Conference