In his recent article, The Guardian’s Bradley Busch investigates whether listening to music while studying actually helps the learning process, as many students claim it does.
He uncovers a study from the Applied Psychology Department at Cardiff Metropolitan University, which found that students who revised in quiet environments performed more than 60% better in an exam than their peers who revised while listening to music with lyrics.
The findings show that;
- Students who revised while listening to music without lyrics did better than those who had revised to music with lyrics.
- It made no difference if students revised listening to songs they liked or disliked. Both led to a reduction in their test performance.
- Students who revised in silence rated their environment as less distracting and accurately predicted that this would lead to better performances in subsequent tests.
Busch also explores related research in this field and how it relates to the classroom.
Read the full article here.
