The Effects of Music on Student's Creativity

In the field of psychology, music is recognized as a separate language. Similar to other languages in the world, music has its own area in the brain and in order to be able to understand it there is a definite need for such trainings. In addition to the direct impacts on other arts, music has always been in interaction with people throughout the world in such a way that it has been considered to address the phenomena of social, political and cultural works. The results of several researches have suggested that training in the world of music has positive effects on memory, selective attention, special abilities, mathematics and reading ability of children to solve social issues (social skills). In addition, similar researches have shown that music can improve people’s learning and academic performances. Some studies have suggested that music with words has a more profound effect on Verbal memory than that of Visual memory. The present study has attempted to investigate the effects of music on students’ creativity and learning skills. This was based on a casual comparative or ex post facto relationship. In order to carry this research, 120 female and male students of the same age were equally chosen from ordinary secondary schools and art schools, namely those who were in seventh grade in Tehran, the Iranian capital. They were 60 students from ordinary schools and 60 from music conservatory/schools, of these 60 students- 30 were female and 30 male in each type of institution -. The sample regarding secondary schools was chosen using a cluster sampling method; but, as the numbers of the art schools were very few, the sample chosen was considered to be based on the convenience sampling method. Both groups were given a creativity questionnaire at the end of the term. The data was collected and later analyzed using the student T-test. To measure students’ creativity, the Torrance test of creativity was adopted in this research. The test consists of 60 questions with three options to respond to, encompassing all the four different subsets of creativity namely fluid, expansion, innovation and flexibility. Using the above test, the creativity of the students of different institutions and different genders were measured and analyzed. To measure students learning and hence their academic performances the classroom marks of the students of different types of institutions and genders were also investigated. The reliability of the four different subsets of fluid, expansion, innovation and flexibility were; 0.82, 0.83, 0.80 and 0.84 respectively. The results showed that the creativity of students attending art colleges where they major in music, performed much better than their counter part students, studying at ordinary schools in all the four different subsets of the creativity. The results also revealed that female students outperformed their male counterparts and that the females in art colleges did better than the females in the ordinary secondary schools.