Tom Jacobs - For Better Grades, Try Bach in the Background

As every teacher knows, it is one thing to impart information; it’s quite another for students to absorb it, process it, and be able to regurgitate it. New research suggests educators can help this to occur by turning to some old friends: Beethoven, Bach, and Tchaikovsky.

In the journal Learning and Individual Differences, a research team led by Fabrice Dosseville of the Universite de Caen Basse-Normandie describes an experiment featuring 249 university students. All were enrolled in an introductory course in sports psychology.

The students were divided into two groups “that were equal on academic performance.” Each group viewed a different version of an hour-long videotaped lecture on “Expertise in Athletics,” in which the talk was accompanied by synchronized slides.

For one group, the lecture was accompanied by a series of familiar classical pieces, including excerpts from Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker and Bach’sThird Brandenburg Concerto. The other group heard the lecture with no background music.

Read More:

http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture/for-better-grades-try-bach-in-the-background-38573/?utm_source=Newsletter198&utm_medium=email&utm_content=0131&utm_campaign=newsletters#