Cognitive and academic benefits of music training with children: A multilevel meta-analysis

Music training has repeatedly been claimed to positively impact children’s cognitive skills and academic achievement (literacy and mathematics). This claim relies on the assumption that engaging in intellectually demanding activities fosters particular domain-general cognitive skills, or even genera...

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Published in:Memory & cognition Vol. 48; no. 8; pp. 1429 - 1441
Main Authors: Sala, Giovanni, Gobet, Fernand
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New York Springer US 01.11.2020
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:
Academic achievement
Bayes Theorem
Bayesian analysis
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Child
Children
Children & youth
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive ability
Cognitive enhancement
Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive skills
Cognitive skills training
Confirmatory bias
Cross-Sectional Studies
Educational programs
Humans
Intelligence
Literacy
Mathematics
Memory
Meta-analysis
Music
Musical performances
Musicians & conductors
Optimism
Phonology
Psychology
Reading comprehension
Skills
Statistical analysis
Systematic review
Training
Transfer
Academic achievement
Cognitive training
Music
Cognitive ability
ISSN:0090-502X, 1532-5946, 1532-5946
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Music training has repeatedly been claimed to positively impact children’s cognitive skills and academic achievement (literacy and mathematics). This claim relies on the assumption that engaging in intellectually demanding activities fosters particular domain-general cognitive skills, or even general intelligence. The present meta-analytic review ( N = 6,984, k = 254, m = 54) shows that this belief is incorrect. Once the quality of study design is controlled for, the overall effect of music training programs is null ( g ¯ ≈ 0) and highly consistent across studies ( τ 2 ≈ 0). Results of Bayesian analyses employing distributional assumptions (informative priors) derived from previous research in cognitive training corroborate these conclusions. Small statistically significant overall effects are obtained only in those studies implementing no random allocation of participants and employing non-active controls ( g ¯ ≈ 0.200, p < .001). Interestingly, music training is ineffective regardless of the type of outcome measure (e.g., verbal, non-verbal, speed-related, etc.), participants’ age, and duration of training. Furthermore, we note that, beyond meta-analysis of experimental studies, a considerable amount of cross-sectional evidence indicates that engagement in music has no impact on people’s non-music cognitive skills or academic achievement. We conclude that researchers’ optimism about the benefits of music training is empirically unjustified and stems from misinterpretation of the empirical data and, possibly, confirmation bias.
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ISSN:0090-502X
1532-5946
1532-5946
DOI:10.3758/s13421-020-01060-2