Music education, academic achievement, and executive functions.

Abstract

This study examined whether music education was associated with improved performance on measures of academic achievement and executive functions. Participants were 265 school-age children (Grades 1 through 8, 58% female, and 86% African American) who were selected by lottery to participate in an out-of-school program offering individual- and large-ensemble training on orchestral instruments. Measures of academic achievement (standardized test scores and grades in English language arts and math) were taken from participants’ academic records, whereas executive functions (EFs) were assessed through students’ performance on a computerized battery of common EF tasks. Results indicated that, relative to controls, students in the music education program scored higher on standardized tests, t(217) = 2.74, p = .007; earned better grades in English language arts, t(163) = 3.58, p < .001, and math, t(163) = 2.56, p = .011; and exhibited superior performance on select tasks of EFs and short-term memory. Further analyses revealed that although the largest differences in performance were observed between students in the control group and those who had received the music program for 2 to 3 years, conditional effects were also observed on 3 EF tasks for students who had been in the program for 1 year. These findings are discussed in light of current educational policy, with a particular emphasis on the implications for future research designed to understand the pathways connecting music education and EFs.

Individual differences in musical training and executive functions: A latent variable approach

“…Moreno and colleagues quasi-randomly assigned children to receive computerized music training or visual arts training and found that the musical-training group showed better behavioral performance as well as a greater index of brain plasticity on no-go trials in a go/no-go task (Moreno et al, 2011;see Moreno & Farzan, 2015, for discussion). Similarly, children who enrolled in after-school music lessons also showed improvement on multiple tasks of inhibitory control (go/no-go, Stroop, and flanker tasks), as compared to a waitlist (no-contact) control group (Holochwost et al, 2017). In contrast, Bugos and DeMarie (2017) found more equivocal results, in which preschool children assigned to music lessons outperformed children assigned to Lego-building lessons on one test of inhibitory control (a matching-familiar-figures test), but not on another (a day/night Stroop task).…”

“…The relationships between musical ability and EFs have mostly been demonstrated in correlational studies, and these links could reflect a few possibilities. One possibility is that musical experience draws strongly on some (or all) aspects of EFs, which leads to collateral benefits, or transfer effects, to those EF abilities more broadly (e.g., Holochwost et al, 2017). This might mean that musical training could serve to improve EFs more broadly (i.e., as a type of relatively enjoyable cognitive training).…”

Increased engagement of the cognitive control network associated with music training in children during an fMRI Stroop task

“…Studies assessing executive functions before and after a period of music-based interventions have shown that music training is associated with enhancements in working memory [ 28 , 29 ], performance on an inhibition task [ 30 ], and on a test of attentional control [ 29 ]. A recent longitudinal study with children found that random assignment in an after-school music training program was associated with enhanced performance on several tasks of cognitive control and response inhibition [ 31 ]. However, an effect of music-based interventions on measures of executive function was not replicated in another large-scale study of children between the ages of 6–14 [ 32 ].…”

Individual differences in musical training and executive functions: A latent variable approach

“…Similarly, children who enrolled in after-school music lessons also showed improvement on multiple tasks of inhibitory control (go/no-go, Stroop, and flanker tasks) compared to a waitlist (no contact) control group (Holochwost et al, 2017). In contrast, Bugos and DeMarie (2017) found more equivocal results, where preschool children assigned to music lessons outperformed children assigned to Lego-building lessons on one test of inhibitory control (a matching familiar figures test), but not on another (a day/night Stroop task).…”