The Impact of Music Education and Athletic Participation on Academic Achievement

The Impact of Music Education and AthleticParticipation on Academic Achievement 

This article was interesting to me beacuse of the fact that it was an actual study to see if students who were althetic performed different than students who were musical. Since this sort of correllates to my study (to see if students who are musically trained perform well on math assessments vs. students who haven't received musical training.)

"For many years, music educators have dealt with this question: Did their students achieve at a higher academic level than their nonmusician peers because they were more intelligent or could some portion of this higher achievement be attributed to their training as musicians? Music educators have long believed that music, as a discipline, was drawing the best and brightest, but the effect that music has on students' academic ability has just begun to come to light."

This thesis statement, written by Schneider, Timothy W.; Klotz, Jack, caught my attnetion because I was curious about the same thing before coming up with my thesis. 

"Music and Mathematics The connection between music and mathematics is evident in the very nature of the music discipline itself. Music is built on counting systems and is performed over time. Numerical subdivisions, overtone structure, and tuning systems (Pythagorean tuning) are examples of inherent relationships between math and music."

The researcher does find evidence that musicians do perform better than those who are not trained in music. I especially like his information found on page 6 regarding music and math.

AUTHOR Schneider, Timothy W.; Klotz, Jack TITLE The Impact of Music Education and Athletic Participation on Academic Achievement. PUB DATE 2000-11-00 NOTE 36p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mid-South Educational Research Association (28th, Bowling Green, KY, November 15-17, 2000). PUB TYPE Reports Research (143) Speeches/Meeting Papers (150)

Integrating Music With Core Subjects

Integrating Music With Core Subjects by Jeffrey Aaron is an article found through JSTOR that I think speaks to an important idea. In the article, Aaron states that, "Any teacher including activities from all perspectives will be educating more completely." He suggests that children demonstrate different ways of understanding and to include ways that include art and music may help specific students be more successful.

In general, I think that including music in core subjects is a great way to keep a subject interesting. There are so many nursery rhymes that can assist younger students to learn challenging subjects and incorporating older children to be creative and include music in projects, etc., can help maintain interests in the "not so fun" areas of learning.

Aaron, J. (1994). Integrating Music With Core Subjects. Music Educators Journal, Vol. 80(No. 6). Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3398709