The association between musical training and school performance appears general and non-specific across subjects, with no evidence for special links to single domains¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q1
Currency · newest study 2009 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q1 i? The authors interpret their mark advantage as spreading across all subjects except sports, arguing against domain-specific 'special links' between music and single school subjects. → Olive Emil Wetter 2009

Evidence¶

Olive Emil Wetter 2009¶

Olive Emil Wetter, Fritz Koerner, Adrian Schwaninger. (2009). Does musical training improve school performance? Instr Sci 37:365–374. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-008-9052-y

q1 · i? · associational · r2

Authors' interpretation (Discussion) of their per-subject results, aligned with Schellenberg's (2004) conclusion of a modest but widespread intellectual benefit from music lessons; this is an interpretation, not a separately tested result.

"Our effect in the average marks spreads across all subjects (except sports), which rather speaks for an overall, non-specific asso-ciation of musical training and intellectual performance."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Music-practicing children scored significantly better than controls in all school subjects except sports — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Musical training remains a significant predictor of overall marks in multiple regression with income and grade, which have higher partial correlations — related
• Music-control mark difference emerges with training duration: no difference in grade 3, significant by grade 6, with control marks declining over grades — related
• Accumulated deliberate practice is associated with performance, explaining a domain-dependent share of its variance: about a quarter in games, 4% in education and under 1% in professions — related
• Children taking optional handicraft lessons scored significantly worse overall than controls, and handicraft did not significantly predict marks in regression — related
• Children practicing music achieve significantly better overall average school marks than controls — related
• Correlations between performance on different intellectual tasks fail to reach 1.00, indicating specialization of intelligence — related