My time in high school just ended and the university is already knocking on the door. I loved the school time. At least the time between the lessons. For a long time, the rest was very boring. Especially when I had to learn for tests or exams. I tried many different ways of learning. I tried it with friends, alone, at my desk, in my bed or even doing nothing. Believe it or not, that was not even the most fun thing. But when I grew older, my interest in music also grew. In every free minute, I listen to music. Learning time might not be free time, but I started to listen to music while concentrating and I got used to it. I had one discussion after another with my parents, my teachers and some friends, whether listening to music while learning is productive or lowers the productivity. In this article, I am going to discuss this topic and we will see, what the facts say.
Pros:
Music puts us in a good mood.
Maybe you wrote the exact same article five times and are still not happy with it. Maybe your computer freezes again and again. Maybe you can not remember the formula of the Pythagorean theorem. There are a bunch of reasons to lose the motivation to learn. But instead of giving up or destroying your computer screen, you can listen to music. Not only, that it saves you money and nerves, but it also increases your grades. Maybe you have heard about the Mozart effect. Through a study it was found, that the grades of students improve by listening to Mozart. In 1998, the governor of the US state of Georgia, proposed a budged over 105.000$ per year, to provide every child with a CD of Mozart. But how does that help us? I assume, that most students do not listen to classical music. Don’t worry, a few years later, another study found, that students who listened to the BritPop band Blur also did better on tests. Even better than the students of the Mozart effect study. Reason for that, is music itself. In average, students enjoy pop music better than classical music, what proves, that listening to music you like puts you in a better mood, which also includes better learning outcomes.
Cons:
Even if music brings you in a better mood, it doesn’t mean that it helps everyone. For sure a good mood is one part of a good learning outcome, but there is one thing, that is at least as important. I think I am not the only one, who once made homework or studied for an exam at the dining table and your mom or your dad started to vacuum around you or starts asking questions about your day. It is very nice of them, but it distracts you from your work. Some people feel the same with music. They start singing in their head the tune or lyrics of their favorite songs or, when they listen to music without lyrics they start thinking about their live. Especially people who are introverts get more easily overstimulated.
Furthermore, with music in the background, our working memory gets worse. The working memory is used while reading texts or learning vocabulary.
To put it into a nutshell, first and foremost it depends on the person if listening to music while learning helps or doesn’t help. The easiest way to find out is to try it out. But for the majority I can say, that listening to music while learning languages is distracting, but listening to it while studying for science subjects increases your learning outcome.
I hope, that you liked my article and maybe I was able to help you improve your grades a little bit.
https://artofsmart.com.au/study/listening-to-music-while-studying/ (Written by Nandini Dhir
)
https://www.uow.edu.au/media/2019/is-it-ok-to-listen-to-music-while-studying.php (October 17, 2019, Dr Timothy Byron)
https://www.studyinternational.com/news/curious-kids-listen-to-music-while-studying/ (21 Oct 2019)