WEDNESDAY, DEC 4, 2013 08:45 AM EST

Study: Music lessons boost

emotional, intellectual
development
Research suggests that musical training develops cognitive skills that can
be applied to other tasks
TOM JACOBS, PACIFIC STANDARD

There is no longer any doubt that student musicians perform better than their peers
on a variety of measures, including getting better grades. But the chicken-and-egg
question lingers: Is this effect due to their musical training? Or are sharper, more
motivated kids more likely to take up an instrument?
While it doesn’t provide a definitive answer, new research from Germany presents
evidence that improved academic performance truly is a result of musical training.
“Even after controlling for a large number of parental background differences, learning a
musical instrument is associated with better cognitive skills and school grades, as well as
higher conscientiousness, openness and ambition,” report Adrian Hille and Jurgen
Schupp of the German Institute for Economic Research.

Reverse causality is “highly unlikely to entirely explain our results,” they add.

Hille and Schupp used data from the German Socioeconomic Panel Study, which
includes data on “the intensity and duration of music activities” on the part of youngsters,
as well as detailed information on their academic achievements and family background.
The researchers categorized youngsters as “musically active” if they “played a musical
instrument at least between age 8 and 17, and who take music lessons outside of school.”

They found musically active kids are “more conscientious, open and ambitious” than
their non-musical peers. In addition, they scored significantly higher on a standard
cognitive skills test—an advantage that, somewhat surprisingly, “is driven by verbal
rather than mathematical skills.”

Young musicians were about 15 percent more likely than non-musicians to report they
were planning to attend a university after graduating from high school. “Adolescents of
low or medium socioeconomic status with music training are more optimistic about their
future chances of success,” the researchers write. “Other than that, results do not differ by
socioeconomic origin.”
While other extracurricular activities were similarly linked to greater intellectual and
emotional development, they found music had the strongest impact by far. “Music
improves cognitive and non-cognitive skills more than twice as much as sports, theater or
dance,” they write.

The researchers concede they cannot rule out the possibility that smarter, more
emotionally open kids are more likely to become music students. But their analysis,
based on the kids’ achievements and their parents’ income, education level, involvement
in their children’s education, and interest in the arts, suggests the opposite is far more
likely.

“We approach causality better than any previous observational study on the effects of
musical training,” they write.

The reasons behind this positive dynamic are multifaceted. Music instruction instills self-
discipline, shows kids how to set and achieve goals, and develops cognitive skills that can
then be transferred to other tasks.
And yet, school districts continue to cut music programs. What more evidence do they
need?