Middle School Music and Theatre Students Get Better Grades

Does your middle schooler want to study music, theater, or dance? Do you fear it will be a distraction from academics and put their grades at risk?

A rigorously designed, decade-long study of more than 30,000 Florida students suggests the exact opposite is more likely.

It found students who took an elective arts class in sixth, seventh, or eighth grade had significantly higher grade point averages (GPAs), and better scores on standardized reading and math tests, than their peers who were not exposed to the arts. This held true after the researchers took into account “all the ways that students who did and did not take the arts in middle school were initially different.”

While much research has suggested music and arts training confers academic benefits, the chicken-and-egg question has made definitive declarations difficult. At least one major study concluded music students do better at school largely because smarter, more capable kids are more likely to choose to study music.

The new study, in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, addresses that issue by following a large group of low-income students from kindergarten through eighth grade. This allowed the researchers to create a baseline level of each youngster’s academic accomplishments, and determine if arts classes boosted their achievement level.

Read the article at Pacific Standard: https://psmag.com/education/middle-school-music-and-theater-students-get-better-grades?fbclid=IwAR0iaiwIY5K0Xd22-vFat6JoDyRcyhYasjllMjMsmgMnZbhvBGXx2LSvAPw