Combining maths with music leads to higher scores, suggests review of 50
years of research

Date:
June 29, 2023
Source:
Taylor & Francis Group
Summary:
Children do better at maths when music is a key part of their
lessons, an analysis of almost 50 years of research on the topic
has revealed.


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FULL STORY ========================================================================== Children do better at maths when music is a key part of their lessons,
an analysis of almost 50 years of research on the topic has revealed.

It is thought that music can make maths more enjoyable, keep
students engaged and help any ease fear or anxiety they have about
maths. Motivation may be increased and pupils may appreciate maths more,
the peer-reviewed article in Educational Studies details.

Techniques for integrating music into maths lessons range from clapping
to pieces with different rhythms when learning numbers and fractions,
to using maths to design musical instruments.

Previous research has shown that children who are better at music also
do better at maths. But whether teaching music to youngsters actually
improves their maths has been less clear.

To find out more, Turkish researcher Dr. Ayc,a Akin, from the Department
of Software Engineering, Antalya Belek University, searched academic
databases for research on the topic published between 1975 and 2022.

She then combined the results of 55 studies from around the world,
involving almost 78,000 young people from kindergarten pupils to
university students, to come up with an answer.

Three types of musical intervention were included the meta-analysis: standardised music interventions (typical music lessons, in which
children sing and listen to, and compose, music), instrumental musical interventions (lessons in which children learn how to play instruments,
either individually or as part of a band) and music-maths integrated interventions, in which music is integrated into maths lessons.

Students took maths tests before and after taking part in the intervention
and the change in their scores was compared with that of youngsters who
didn't take part in an intervention.

The use of music, whether in separate lessons or as part of maths classes,
was associated with greater improvement in maths over time.

The integrated lessons had the biggest effect, with around 73% of students
who had integrated lessons doing significantly better than youngsters
who didn't have any type of musical intervention.

Some 69% of students who learned how to play instruments and 58% of
students who had normal music lessons improved more than pupils with no
musical intervention.

The results also indicate that music helps more with learning arithmetic
than other types of maths and has a bigger impact on younger pupils and
those learning more basic mathematical concepts.

Dr Akin, who carried out the research while at Turkey's National Ministry
of Education and Antalya Belek University, points out that maths and
music have much in common, such as the use of symbols symmetry. Both
subjects also require abstract thought and quantitative reasoning.

Arithmetic may lend itself particularly well to being taught through
music because core concepts, such as fractions and ratios, are also
fundamental to music. For example, musical notes of different lengths
can be represented as fractions and added together to create several
bars of music.

Integrated lessons may be especially effective because they allow
pupils to build connections between the maths and music and provide
extra opportunities to explore, interpret and understand maths.

Plus, if they are more enjoyable than traditional maths lessons, any
anxiety students feel about maths may be eased.

Limitations of the analysis include the relatively small number of studies available for inclusion. This meant it wasn't possible to look at the
effect of factors such as gender, socio-economic status and length of
musical instruction on the results.

Dr Akin, who is now based at Antalya Belek University, concludes that
while musical instruction overall has a small to moderate effect on
achievement in maths, integrated lessons have a large impact.

She adds: "Encouraging mathematics and music teachers to plan lessons
together could help ease students' anxiety about mathematics, while also boosting achievement."
* RELATED_TOPICS
o Health_&_Medicine
# Medical_Education_and_Training # Children's_Health #
Teen_Health
o Mind_&_Brain
# Music # K-12_Education # Creativity
o Computers_&_Math
# Mathematics # Educational_Technology #
Computational_Biology
* RELATED_TERMS
o Early_childhood_education o Music o Mammal_classification
o Computational_genomics o Double_blind o Gifted_education o
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========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Taylor_&_Francis_Group. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Ayc,a Akın. Let me make mathematics and music together: A meta-
analysis of the causal role of music interventions on mathematics
achievement. Educational Studies, 2023; 1 DOI: 10.1080/
03055698.2023.2216826 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230629125739.htm

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