Herrington 1

Brooks Herrington
Mrs. Stanford
ENG 231
13 December 2016
Rough Draft
As music plays a huge role within everybody's lives, the chances are that people listen to
music while they are either studying for school, reading or just doing homework. Does listening
to music actually help students while doing these things? Due to the different cultures throughout
the world, different kinds of music are present everywhere which increases the chances of
students using it to aid them in their learning. Music provides students with the opportunity to
improve their ability to focus on their schoolwork and studying as it can relax the student. A
student listening to music can even retain more information than if they were not listening to
music. It can even improve the students work and increase fluidity in writing as the rhythm of
music helps gets the students into the flow of writing.
Face it, as a bi-product of the evolving American culture, music is impacting the younger
generation, and especially students, now more than ever before. From chores, to just wanting to
chill and vibe, to even studying and writing papers for school. How many students are really
listening to music while studying or doing school work? In a survey that was conducted at a local
high school by a student at Canton South in 2016, students were asked if they listened to music
while studying. The results consisted of over 100 students taking part in the survey and over 80%
of students admitting to listening to music while doing homework or studying. Students were
also asked if listening to music while studying helped them study and the results showed that
over 75% of students agreed that it improved their studying in some type of way. So why are

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students listening to music while studying? In the survey, many students say that the music
helps me concentrate and that it Makes me not as bored and helps me focus. They also said
they did so because it helped them focus and block out any other outside distractions that could
affect their studying. Some of the most common outside distractions could consist of noise from
other people or it could even consist of noise from other electronics like background noise from a
t.v. or just some loud people in another room. Numerous students also expressed how music
helped keep them from being bored and helped keep their mind from wandering. Students also
said that the music relaxed them and stopped them from panicking about how much work they
have to do and gets their mind in the right place to study.
Another thing that music can do positively for students is improve their writing ability.
Listening to music while writing can improve a students word choice as the use of the lyrics in
the music can possibly give the student more words to use that they never had thought of using
before, thus increasing the vocabulary. The music could also affect how the vocabulary is used
within the pieces of writing as the student could possibly use more diverse word choice.
Listening to music while writing also helps the fluidity of the paper because the rhythm of the
song can help the writer flow his words together more effectively in a way that a reader could
understand and interpret the information more clearly. In an experiment conducted by Dr.
Zekerya Batur, he tested the writing fluidity of students who wrote an essay with music playing
in the background and compared them to students who wrote an essay without music playing in
the background. During the experiment, she noticed that the students that listened to music
playing in the background while writing the essay showed that they used more words than the
students who didnt listen to background music. The students who listened to music opposed to
the students who didnt also had more fluidity within their papers than the others. How does the

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music affect the students writing abilities? According to Dr. Zekerya Batur, the music improved
the students writing because it emotionally affects the the pupils association of ideas which
means that the music helps create new ideas that werent going to be thought of without the
music. The music introduces new ways of thinking because it gets the writer emotionally
connected to the paper if they have their mind set on completing their task. When students
listened to music in the background while writing, there were some noticeable differences that
were observed. The differences consisted of an increase in the students vocabulary and use of
words, but they also showed an increase in the fluidity of the writing that wasnt present in the
students that wrote their essays without music playing in the background.
A psychologist by the name of Dr. Jeremy Dean wrote about how music doesnt directly
affect the listener unless the listener engages with the music. He talked about the research of
Ferguson and Sheldon that took place in 2013 and said how their research showed that when
people engaged with the music, they were more emotionally lifted than people who just listened
to music without engaging with it. So how does a person engage with music? For an example,
Dr. Dean talked about actively trying to feel happier and how that on its own doesnt work
when trying to get in a better mood. He said that listening to music while actively trying to feel
happier actually does make the person feel as if their moods are being uplifted more than just
trying to get in a better mood without music.
What does this have to do with music and its effect on students studying? If music can
get a person to get in a better mood when theyre mad or sad, then music can also help them get
in the mood to study and get them focused on anything thats in front of them. If the reader
emotionally engages with the music, they can get a boost of motivation that they previously
didnt have, opposed to not listening to music while studying or writing. Also, if the student is

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interested in the topic that they are studying or writing about, then the music can help them get
even more connected to the topic and make the writer more creative with their information and
how they arrange that information in the paper, making it a better piece of writing. Music can
affect the motivation of the student as well, it could pump them up and motivate them to do the
paper contrary to the depressing mood that usually results from studying. For example, the
students either waited until the last minute to write or because they just dont like writing in the
first place as music could help alleviate the stress and help them push on and complete the paper.
Either way, the music can influence the writer to write with more enthusiasm as the music gives
them that boost that they need to help them write a more interesting and well put together paper.
In another article by psychologist Dr. Jeremy Dean, he talked about how music can open
up parts of the brain that wouldnt be used otherwise. For example, it can open up the regions of
the brain that can control emotions which can increase the productivity of students while writing,
as it can help them connect more with the topic of their writing as well as create more ideas and
pour more of themselves into the paper. It can unlock more of the brains potential and create
ways for the student to think of more things to write about in their paper. Music can also unlock
the parts of the brain that associate with rhythm, as this can help the students write their papers
with more flow and rhythm so that readers can understand what the student is trying portray
within their essay or paper. Also, another thing that Dr. Jeremy wrote in his article was that music
can affect the memory of people as it can get them to remember dates and things that happened
to them in the past. Students who have listened to a song while learning something will have a
better chance of remembering those things if they listen to that song again in the future as it gets
the brain to recall the memories that are associated with that particular song. For an example, if
a student were to listen to a specific song while learning how to do derivatives in math, the

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student could listen to that song again in the future while studying for an AP Calculus test to help
remember how to find the derivative of a function like they had learned in class a couple of days
ago. Thus helping the student remember, and helping them in the future for other occasions
where they might need that information to pass a test or for help on another worksheet.
This could also help students while writing a personal essay about a past experience as it
could help assist them in recalling memories from past years. Dr. Jeremy also wrote about how
music can bring back memories from people who have suffered TBIs (traumatic brain injuries)
and how music could even help bring back the memories of people who suffer from amnesia and
even alzheimer's disease. He talked about a study that was conducted by Baird & Sampson in
2013 where they ran an experiment on people who suffered from a TBI to see what memories
were brought back when they played music that was very well known at a certain point in the
subjects lifetime. The results that they found from the traumatically brain injured subjects were
actually not that much different from people who havent suffered from a TBI. Thus, providing
proof that music can open up parts of the brain that have importance to memory and that
wouldnt or couldnt have been opened before due to brain injuries or ,even more simply, a
students writing block in English class..
In an article written by Adrian Furnham in 1997, Music While You Work: The Differential
Distraction Of Background Music On The Cognitive Test Performance Of Introverts And
Extroverts., Adrian talks about the effect of a certain genre of music and how it affects introverts
and extroverts differently. He tested how introverts and extroverts performed cognitive tasks
while listening to pop music, along with how the music distracted one of the two types of people
and disrupted their memory recall. He gathered data from a group of ten introverts and ten
extroverts on how they performed in two tests, a memory test with immediate and delayed

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recall, and also a reading comprehension test. They completed these tests in silence and ,while
listening to pop music, the results showed that introverts were extremely affected by the
background music while the extroverts were actually aided by the music as it helped them score
higher on the memory portion than they did without music. This helps show that music can affect
a student positively or negatively depending on their personality, but it mostly shows that the
music heavily increased the the ability to memorize information for students who are extroverts.
Although, of all the students that took part in the survey at Canton South High School, it is
simply not possible that the three quarters of students that favored studying with music are all
extroverts. It is much more reasonable to think that about half of the surveyed population would
be extroverts and the other half introverts.. Unless the small high school in Canton, Ohio is just
full of extroverts, the students that took part in the survey must have been mostly extroverts as
extroverts are more outgoing and would like to put themselves out there more often than
introverts.
Although, it is often argued that music doesnt help students focus at all. In fact, its
argued that music actually distracts the student more and that the student would be better off
listening to nothing to improve studying and the writing of papers as seen in the experiment held
by Adrian Furnham. Although many people listen to music while studying, the music couldnt
benefit every student that there is. For some students and perhaps the majority of students, music
has to have some kind of negative affect or downfall. Some of the downfalls of listening to music
while studying could be that the music distracts the student from concentrating instead of helping
them focus, it can block their train of thought and ,depending on the song, the music can be
focused on more than the studying itself. The lyrics of a song are one of the most distracting
pieces of a song and this is because the student could be more focused on remembering or

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learning the lyrics to a song instead of writing their paper or studying, like they originally
planned on doing. In a journal written by Arielle S Dolegui, The Impact of Listening to Music on
Cognitive Performance, she wrote about how music can disrupt the cognitive ability of the
student. She also wrote how the music that is preferred by that student can also disrupt the
cognitive ability because less cognitive resources are available when the attention is drawn to
the lyrics, emotions, and memories that such music can evoke (Dolegui 2013), causing the
student to perform at a lower level academically by distracting themselves with music when in
the act of studying or learning. Music can also affect the memory of the student by disrupting
that cognitive ability to remember with the volume of the song that is being played.
In another article by Sona Matloubi written in 2014, he talks about how music can disrupt
comprehension, memory, and reading skills. He also wrote how people cant remember very well
while listening to music because the brain can only focus on one thing at a time. Music takes all
the attention from the brain as the brain takes in the music as a form of communication because
of the lyrics in the songs that people listen to. The brain focuses all the attention on the music
because communication is an extremely huge part in every humans life and its programmed
into our brains to put communication over everything. Therefore,when students listen to music, it
can possibly cripple their ability to remember what they want to remember because the music is
taking all the attention from the brain that should be put forth to the studying, reading and/or
writing. Although, its not just music that can distract a student when studying, it could also be
the sound of almost anything that can get the student off of their original train of thought. Like a
dog barking, a siren from a passing cop car, the sound from the television in the other room or
even an annoying sibling that just wont seem to leave the student alone. Even though music can
be pretty distracting to some students, listening to music while studying can alleviate the

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emotional effects of stress and anxiety when engaged in complex cognitive processing, such as
studying for a test, completing homework assignments (Dolegui 2013), it can also improve
cognitive ability depending on the student.
In the end, music helps students study as it helps them keep their brain active and
prevents them from getting distracted by outside distractions. It also helps them focus and
concentrate by getting them into the mood to do the work that they otherwise wouldnt want to
do. The music also can improve their writing abilities by giving the writers more fluidity and an
increased vocabulary in their papers. The majority of people listen to music and with the
increase of accessibility for peoples favorite music, more and more people can listen to their
favorite songs. Along with the easy access of music, more and more students are getting the
chance to listen to music whenever and wherever they want. And because of this, students
everywhere are listening to music while studying to help pass time or too help them concentrate
or whatever they need to get them through the school work. Music can have positive and or
negative effects when studying as. It can also help the student focus and keep the students brain
from wandering as it would without music. Because the student could be so bored that they
would get easily distracted by other things like people or noises created by a TV. On the the other
side of things, music could also impair the students cognitive ability and it could also distract
the student by the brain focusing more on the lyrics, emotions and memories that the brain has
connected to that song. The music could also disrupt the brains ability to remember certain
things that was learned in class in the past. However,music plays a huge role in every students
life and it can make a big impact on how they do in school as it could help them with studying,
writing and reading, or do the complete opposite and just distract them completely. Although, in
the end its all up to the student to decide how the music that they listen to affects their

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production while studying, reading, or writing as this could affect the grade and overall success
of the student in the long run as well.

Works Cited
Batur, Zekerya. "The Contribution Of Music To The Fluent Writing Skills: Mayaz
Technique." Education 137.1 (2016): 82-92. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Dec.
2016.

Dean, Jeremy. "Effects of Music: 10 Influences on the Brain." PsyBlog. N.p., 16 Oct.
2016. Web. 15 Dec. 2016.

Dean, Jeremy. "Music and Memory: 5 Awesome New Psychology Studies PsyBlog."PsyBlog. N.p., 16 Oct. 2016. Web. 15 Dec. 2016.
<http://www.spring.org.uk/2013/12/music-and-memory-5-awesome-new-psychologystudies.php>.

Dolegui, Arielle S. "The Impact of Listening to Music on Cognitive Performance."

Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse 5.09 (2013).

Furnham, Adrian, and Anna Bradley. "Music While You Work: The Differential
Distraction Of Background Music On The Cognitive Test Performance Of Introverts And
Extraverts." Applied Cognitive Psychology 11.5 (1997): 445-455. Academic Search
Complete. Web. 15 Dec. 2016.

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Herrington, Brooks. Survey about how music affects students while studying. 1 Dec.
2016. Raw data. Canton South High School, Canton.

Matloubi, Sona, et al. "Effect Of Background Music On Auditory-Verbal Memory

Performance." Audiology 23.5 (2014): 27-34.Academic Search Complete. Web. 15 Dec.
2016.

Nees, Michael A., Jochen Kaiser, and Jonas Obleser. "Have We Forgotten Auditory
Sensory Memory? Retention Intervals In Studies Of Nonverbal Auditory Working
Memory." Frontiers In Psychology 7.(2016): 1-6. Academic Search Complete. Web. 15
Dec. 2016.

Salam, Pierre, and Alan Baddeley. "Effects of background music on phonological shortterm memory." The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 41.1 (1989): 107-122.