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Does Mozart make you smart? My class of fifth graders decided to do an experiment to find out.
The Mozart Effect has been recognized since 1991, when Alfred A. Tomatis first gave a name to the phenomenon. Since then it’s been researched, study results have been published in medical journals, books have been written about it, and CDs have been sold under the name, The Mozart Effect.
My class is currently reading The 39 Clues, Book 2, The False Note, by Gordon Korman, in which Amy and Dan head to Vienna, Austria, home of Mozart, in search of more clues to find Grace Cahill’s fortune. That’s how the interest in the Mozart Effect began.
We randomly divided the class into two groups. I have the students’ names on cards, and I split the deck into two piles without looking, naming one group the music group and the other group the control group. I became nervous as I read the names of the students in the control group, for it was full of my top performing students, including all of my GATE students. I could have kicked myself, but it was too late. We had to go on with the experiment, although I thought the results might be skewed.
The control group was sent outside to relax in the grass and read a book for ten minutes. The music group stayed inside and listened to Serenade in G, K.525 “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” – Orchestral version, by Mozart for ten minutes with their eyes closed. Whereas normally the students groan when I put on classical music, on this day they enjoyed it.
After the music and reading, I gave the students a short puzzle about Benjamin Franklin. They had to fill in missing letters to reveal a fact about Ben. Every person in the group had to have the puzzle completed correctly in order to announce the group was finished. They were allowed to work together and share clues.
Results of the Mozart Effect, Experiment 1
Music group: Finished the puzzle in 7 minutes, 37 seconds.
Control group: Unable to finish.
I stopped the experiment after 20 minutes. The control group, (the one with the GATE students), complained that the other group had all the smart students in it. Interesting perception.
I told them we would do the same experiment with the same music, but a different puzzle the next morning with the groups switched. This time we did a puzzle about Mozart in which the students had to use a number letter code given to them to solve for a fact about the composer. The puzzle difficulty level was the same as the Benjamin Franklin puzzle.
Results of the Mozart Effect, Experiment 1
Music group (the control group of the previous day): Finished the puzzle in 5 minutes 35 seconds.
Control group (the music group of the previous day): Finished the puzzle in 8 minutes 15 seconds, with a great deal of whining, groaning, and moaning about how difficult it was.
The students are convinced. The music relaxed them and allowed them to think more creatively to problem solve. Even though it was entirely unscientific, it was very interesting. I’ll certainly be playing more classical music in the classroom in the future.
Next up: the students want to find out if the effect carries through with other types of music. I’ll have more on those results later.
