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Kassandra Medrano

Prof. Garza

ENGL 1302-57L

February 23, 2021

Listening to Music While Studying

Introduction:

Listening to music has become something frequently used in our everyday life like in the

car driving to work, hearing it inside the store, or on the television. Music is known to be helpful

in many ways like cause less stress and change a person’s mood. However, through recent

studies, music would not have the same effects when it deals with schoolwork. The focus of this

research is to identify how music affects a student’s performance to study. Listening to music

while studying is the act of multitasking, which means that a student’s attention is not focused

entirely on their work. The purpose of this study is to let college students be aware of the

consequences from listening to music while studying. College students are the ones that must

find the best alternative to study in an effective way, so music is something that should not be

used to learn.

Academic performance is the measurement of a student’s achievement from a variety of

different subjects. It is important for students to have the ability to stay on task and remain

focused on an activity to learn the most successfully. Studying or learning requires a student’s

complete focus. Interruptions can occur often, but it is a student’s responsibility to minimize

them. The lack of concentration on a subject is a bad habit that can result in a decrease a person’s
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productivity in school. Listening to music could be used during breaks or after the studying

because it would not be beneficial to learn. When a person studies, they are using their working

memory, which is a term that refers to a system that stores and manipulates information for

cognitive tasks (Baddeley, 1992). If music is played in the background while you study, our

working memory would be harder to process information, especially when the music has vocals.

Since most college students listen to music while studying, a student's academic performance

while listening to music can change by causing distraction, inefficient multitasking, and hinder

learning.

Literature Review

Listening to any type of music would lead for a decrease in productive performance.

Music is something that is widely used because it brings them happiness. However, that doesn’t

mean that it could benefit us in every way. Academic performance involves disciplining

yourself, being responsible, staying on track, and managing your time appropriately. Being able

to be successful requires dedication and being able to accommodate to any better routines for a

better performance. When a student studies, their main goal is to be proactive and be able to

learn the material effectively. Now a days, people can get easily distracted with their phones

because they want to be on social media, reply to texts, or listen to music. (Rosen, 2017).

Students believe that they could be able switch between different tasks at the same time

and still be able to learn, but that could actually impair academic success. (Bowman et al. ,2010).

Others believe that instead of using lyrical music, they could replace it with classical or

instrumental. That could also have some troublesome effects because our brain is actively

listening to the sounds of the music either way. Therefore, any type of music can still have an

interference to memorize or perform specific tasks. Students should look into tactics to study that
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would make them be focused, motivated, and productive. A useful way to study would be to set a

time to study and make breaks in between and reward yourself to keep going. Music should not

be used during this time because it could make studying longer and inefficient. Once you are

done, then music could be used to rest and relax.

Causing Distraction: Literature Review

When it is that time to study for hours trying to memorize and review notes, some might

choose to have music to not be in complete silence. Even though it might seem like a fun way to

study, it could cause more negative outcomes. Students believe that the use of music while doing

any form of work could create better learning performance. However, it has been proven through

recent studies that all auditory sounds that you engage in while you do other activities are

disturbances. In 2014, Nick Perham and Harrier Currie, researchers from Cardiff Metropolitan

University, demonstrate that even nonlyrical (classical or instrumental) music although have a

soothing relaxing effect and is less distracting, is still considered a distraction. In their study,

they determined if preferred music could improve a person’s reading comprehension

performance. The methodology that was used involved 30 undergraduate students ranging from

the ages 19-65. These students were placed in different groups that used disliked lyrical music,

liked lyrical music, nonlyrical, and quiet. The results showed that disliked music and lyrical

music were found equally damaging to use while performing tasks. Lyrical music is the worst

type of music to listen to when studying, reading, or doing any type of schoolwork. The reason is

because the brain is getting unconsciously distracted from the words of the music and shifting

back to studying causing distraction. Nonlyrical music had less of a troublesome effect, but is not

recommended because performing reading comprehension was best in quiet locations.( Perham,
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N., & Currie, H., 2014). Distractions might not seem as serious, but music can cause disruptive

effects because of the lack of focus a student gives to their work.

In a study made by S.E. Randel and L. Gilroy from Florida Atlantic University, they

wanted to reveal the effects that background music had while using word processed writing. This

experiment was made to 45 college students that were separated depending on the music they

were going to listen to (vocal/instrumental) or silence. It shows how the background music made

a significant impact towards a student’s writing fluency even though there was no response to the

music needed ( Ransdell, S. E., & L. Gilroy, 2001). It also did not matter if it was vocal or

instrumental because they both had unsettling effects. Students are advised to find a quiet

location and avoid listening to music to avoid any time of interruptions. A person that listens to

nonlyrical music takes a moment from studying to listen to the music because of the relaxing

sounds. After a while, studying takes longer and it could be stressful and not very productive

because you are not doing much to learn effectively.

Ineffective Multitasking: Literacy Review

College students use music unaware that work could be done faster without it. Given the

fact that listening to music while studying is a result of multitasking, it could cause problems for

a person to concentrate appropriately. A misconception that students have would be that

multitasking is good because it could get things done “faster”. That is not the case according to a

podcast titled , “Multitasking May Not Mean High Productivity” when Dr. Clifford Nass, a

professor at Stanford University, says that everyone that attempts to multitask fail because it is

inefficient. The reason for this is because more time is spent trying to understand a subject while

doing other activities as well, so it is harder to focus. Listening to music would not only slow you

down, but it could also lead to less productivity. Dr. Nass also mentions that “there's definitely
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evidence that if they[students] stop multitasking, they'll do better because of all the studies

showing that multitasking impairs performance". Listening to music while studying causes

multitasking that is not beneficial for the students and could affect their academic performance.

Most people think that they are able to multitask, but the reality is that very few could really be

able to master two things at once and being able to comprehend everything. “Multitasking is at

the very least ineffective and at the worst, harmful” (Nass 2009).

Using music while studying is like having the television on while working on

assignments, it causes for less to be done or less being understood when studying. Some students

do not think that listening to music is multitasking because it is more of a background sound to

work better in (Ransdell, S. E, & L. Gilroy). However, any type of multitasking would not be as

effective(Nass 2009).Therefore, the use of music while studying would not bring any benefits.

An alternative that students should do would be to set some time to study and take breaks to

avoid getting drained from too much information. Music could be listened to in a student’s own

time, but it should not be used while studying.

Hindering Learning: Literacy Review

When students try to rise for the challenge of listening to music while studying with the

intent that it would benefit them, they are less competent to do so. In a more recent study made

in 2017, researchers at Heimer College wanted to identify the effects of music and sounds on

performances. There were 4 different tests taken by 17-22 participants that were separated in 3

groups. The tests involved memorizing nonsense syllables, poems, different order of numbers,

and then write down what they memorized. The result represented how listening to music while

doing work is “less effective than memorizing them without music”( Musliu, Arian; Berisha,

Blerta; Latifi, Diellza. The Impact of Music in Memory, 2017.) The researchers also stated that
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music should not be used for memorizing purposes. Even though people enjoy listening to music

while reading, music is not a key factor.A similar study was made by Saarikallio & Erkkila from

the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland when the role of music was determined. It was proven that

music was mainly listened to for emotion and mood regulation, so it is not as effective when it is

used for getting things done. As Saarikallio (2007) mentions, “People primarily use music for

good mood and good feelings, not as a tool for cognitive improvement". If students continue to

use music while trying to study, it could hurt their learning and academic performance because

of the lack of focus it could bring.

A Neuroscience research, Mamoudou N’Diaye, says that a study done in 2013 found that

experiments exposed to silence over Mozart, the idea of engaging in tasks while listening to

Mozart’sonada’s, expressed higher rates of production of neurons in the hippocampus, the part of

the brain that processes memory. N’Diaye mentions that the brain is processing and evaluating

new information faster in silence than with sound. As a result, it is more difficult to successfully

learn when there is a use of music present. The brain has a harder time understanding of what to

learn or remember (the music or the work).

Methodology

An online survey would be made to find out people’s opinions of how they perceive

listening to music while studying. I will make the survey through google forms and I would send

the link to it on social media. My goal would be to get 15-20 participants, preferably from the

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Some questions that I would want to ask would be if

they listen to music, if so which type (lyrical or nonlyrical), and if it affects them when they try

to do schoolwork. I also would include a section where they could give feedback of anything

they would like to add. My expectation would be for most people to listen to music while
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studying and I would infer that they would think that they use it to focus. The purpose of this

survey is to have an idea of what students think and find out if they are aware of the negative

effects that listening to music while studying could bring.

Works Cited

Baddeley, Alan. “Working Memory.” Science, vol. 255, no. 5044, 1992, pp. 556–559. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/2876819. Accessed 24 Feb. 2021.

Bowman, Laura L., et al. “Can Students Really Multitask? An Experimental Study of Instant

Messaging While Reading.” Computers & Education, vol. 54, no. 4, 2010, pp. 927–31.

Crossref, doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2009.09.024.

MUSLIU, Arian; BERISHA, Blerta; LATIFI, Diellza. The Impact of Music in Memory.

European Journal of Social Science Education and Research, p. 222-227, May 2017. ISSN 2312-

8429, http://journals.euser.org/files/articles/ejser_may_august_17_nr_2/Arian.pdf.

N’Diaye, Mamoudou. “What Should You Listen to When You Want to Focus?”

YouTube, uploaded by Seeker, 6 June 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHe6kAZa2NE.

Perham, N., & Currie, H. (2014). Does listening to preferred music improve reading

comprehension performance? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 28(2), 279–284.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/acp.2994?saml_referrer.

Nass, Clifford, “Multitasking May Not Mean High Productivity.” Talk of the Nation,

hosted by Raeburn, Paul, NPR, 28 Aug. 2009. www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?

storyId=112334449.
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Ransdell, S. E., and L. Gilroy. “The Effects of Background Music on Word Processed

Writing.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 17, no. 2, 2001, pp. 141–48. Crossref,

doi:10.1016/s0747-5632(00)00043-1. http://richardcolby.net/writ2000/wp-

content/uploads/2017/10/2001-ransdell.pdf

Rosen, L.D. (2017). The distracted student mind — enhancing its focus and attention.

Phi Delta Kappan 99 (2), 8-14.

Saarikallio, Suvi, and Jaakko Erkkilä. “The Role of Music in Adolescents’ Mood

Regulation.” Psychology of Music, vol. 35, no. 1, 2007, pp. 88–109. Crossref,

doi:10.1177/0305735607068889.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229471062_The_role

_of_music_in_adolescents'_mood_regulation.

Listening to Music While Studying Survey

This survey is to collect information about listening to music while studying. Please answer the
following questions. This information will be used for research purposes.
1. Do you listen to music while studying?
o Yes
o No
o Sometimes

2. What type of music do you use when you study?

o Lyrical
o Non-lyrical
o I don’t listen to any.

3. How does listening to music impact the length of time you spend studying?
o Music makes it more difficult for me to study.
o Music does not affect my studying time.
o Music helps me to study longer.
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4. Do you believe that listening to music while studying affects your concentration?
o Yes
o No

5. Do you consider music to be a form of multitasking?

o Yes
o No