Music is the language of feelings, the food of the soul. But could it also be a grade booster for high school students? Researchers think so — if students engage in actually playing the music (not just listening to it).
A new study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology reports high school students who play musical instruments score significantly higher in science, math and English exams than their non-musical peers. The authors looked at the academic performance and music engagement (the number of music courses taken) of over 110,000 Canadian students, making the study the largest of its kind.
Peter Gouzouasis, professor of music education at the University of British Columbia and senior author of the study, has been studying the effects of music education on academic achievement for over two decades. He found that highly engaged music students, those that had taken three or four music classes during ...
