Written by Cori Humann

It’s a debate that seems to have no end. My students say they should be allowed to listen to music on their headphones while they are studying. With the backup of our handbook, I say they should not. Both sides claim to have scientific research backing up their position. What is the answer?

Quiet Room Without Distraction
Conventional wisdom says that I am right. Many studies (Chou, 2010; Paul, 2013) through decades of research have said that students should study in a quiet room without distractions. Research says (Robinson-Riegler & Robinson-Riegler, 2012; Chou, 2010) that our brains have a limited capacity for what they can hold at any given time, and music prevents our brains from encoding material that will be important later. Other theories (David, Brickman, & Kim, 2014; Paul, 2013) point out that multitasking is not really possible, and students are frequently guilty of task-switching—moving from studying to checking messages to changing the streaming station rapidly, forcing the mind to refocus each time. This is not efficient work, and this is what my students don’t want me to read.

In reality, is it possible to find a quiet room in which to study? Distractions are everywhere, from roommates to siblings to televisions playing in the distance to overheard conversations. Wouldn’t it be better to use ear buds or headphones to block out all other distractions with music?

Music Designed to Help Students Study
There are studies that support that. At the very least, some have said that listening to music neither enhances nor inhibits learning (Jancke & Sandmann, 2010). Others have focused on the type of music, saying that slow music is neutral, fast and loud music is harmful to comprehension, and fast and soft music is actually helpful while studying since it can put students in a better frame of mind (Thompson, Schellenberg, & Letnic, 2011).

Before being tempted to find some fast and soft music to play during study times in the classroom, it might be best to think about how students are all different. Some may actually prefer a quiet room; some may dislike fast music. Some may be distracted simply because they don’t like the music chosen. This practice could be creating more problems than it solves.

Individualized Music Choices
Something I realized as I did my research was that the studies almost universally used instrumental music in their studies—sometimes even music that was composed specifically for the study. This does not mirror reality. My students readily admitted that this is not the kind of music they choose when they are doing homework. To help me come to some sort of conclusion, I asked my senior English class to help me with a field study, a challenge they readily took up. I had each student complete two worksheets in class—one while listening to music of their choice through earbuds and one in quiet classroom. I marked the worksheets and recorded grades so they were motivated to do well both days. For both worksheets, I disregarded skipped questions, only marking those that had been answered.

Out of the nineteen students that completed both worksheets under the conditions set, only one answered more questions on the day without music, and that student still had more correct answers on the music day. Every other student completed more questions and had more correct answers on the day they listened to music—and that was despite the fact that I unintentionally gave them the slightly harder worksheet on the music day. They had similar schedules both days with the same amount of time to complete the work. No one was allowed an extension.

Music While Studying—Yes or No?
My study was not scientific, of course. There weren’t enough students, and they were not chosen randomly. However, I did find the results intriguing. The seniors acknowledged that little was going to change this year, but my mind has been more or less changed. The advantage of allowing ear buds is that the music can block out other distractions and each student can choose what works best for him or her. Completely quiet rooms are rare in our society; music, however, can be just about everywhere thanks to technology.

For now, the debate rages largely because I have the handbook on my side. However, armed with the research and the study I myself did, I am ready to suggest to my faculty that we remove that rule from the handbook.

Cori Humann (MLC ’96) serves at Nebraska Lutheran High School—Waco NE.

References
Chou, P. T.-M. (2010, January). Attention drainage effect: How background music affects concentration in Taiwanese college students. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 10(1), 36-46.

David, P., Brickman, J., & Kim, J.-H. (2014, April). Mobile phone distraction while studying. New Media & Society, 1-19.

Paul, A. M. (2013, May 3). You’ll never learn!: Students can’t resist multitasking, and it’s impairing their memory. The Hechinger Report.

Thompson, W. F., Schellenberg, E. G., & Letnic, A. K. (2011). Fast and loud background music disrupts reading comprehension. Psychology of Music, 1-9.