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THE EFFECT OF MOZART'S MUSIC ON CHILD DEVELOPMENT IN A JORDANIAN KINDERGARTEN
D R JEHAN MATTAR The University of Jordan Department of Education
Young children who listen to music regularly demonstrate better de- velopment than those who do not. As children grow, their social, cog- nitive and physical skills can be enhanced by their relationship with music. The music of Mozart was introduced into the children's en- vironment as a sensory background for the standard curriculum. The purpose of this experimental study was to mvestigate the effect of "The Mozart Effect: Music for Children'' collection on the social, cognitive, and physical development of five and six-year-olds. Forty-two chil- dren participated. Twenty-one of them were in an experimental group exposed to music, composed by Mozart, accompanying their daily school programme for eight months. The control group, in the same kindergarten, following an identical curriculum, did not experience any accompanying music. To evaluate the children's development, a measurement called "The preschool and kindergarten children's per- formance scale", established and developed by AI-Batsh (2001) in Jor- dan, having the psychometric properties necessary for the study, was used. The results showed significant statistical differences in social, cognitive, and physical development favouring the children in the ex- perimental group. Music can become an important part of any educa- tional setting. It provides a positive atmosphere, which helps ehüdren to experience reduced stress and enhanced development.
Introduction gence ready to unfold between the third and
Young children begin to show a preference f ° " ^ y^"" °f''f« (Campbell, 2002). for the music of their own culture by the age , ^hf « ̂ " ^ ^ «̂ .""̂ ^°' " '̂"^"8 7 "
r 4- /T -^ 'ynr\£\ TT, i „u'l^i,««^ SIC in the cuTTiculum. Firstly, music draws the of two (Levitin, 2006). The early childhood . . - ' . ' . . , ,
. , ^ • I „ \*u «„ u« children into creative activities in the early years are crucial to musical growth, as, be- , . _, , ^ n 1_ .̂ - - J . . childhood classroom when the adult careniUy tweentheagesoffourandsix, weexpenence ^ » ' ^ «^ J
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E^ly exposure to music is especially es (Henniger, 2002). Furthermore, music can essential during the critical period for brain *'̂ =°'"« ^ ™P°fnt P ^ °f ^ ^ educational . , ^ ^ - •*: 1 • J * I 1««« setting. It provides a welcommg atmosphere
development. This cntical penod takes place ° *^ ^ . . ^ « J • *u _̂ u I A I •««:«„ «i«™««to as students enter, offers a cahning etiect after during the preschool and beginnmg elementa- . , ^ , . . . . . , ry years (Beaty, 2000). P^™"*̂ °^ P'^J'^'^^' ^'="^"^' ' ° ° * ^ ' '^'^'•
Music is an excellent tool for teaching the ™°'" transactions, and reduces stress that - , „ . , ^ f . TT J commonly accompanies exammations or oth- first few simple steps of growing up. Howard . •'. ^ , ^ . „ ^ . „ „ J ,. ^ , . f.. «„u„^:„ er academic pressures (Campbell, Campbell Gardner hsted music as one ofthe seven basic onaiA ^ »̂ ' *^ intelligences built into our genetic system, «Dickmson, 2004). - following Maria Montessori and Jean Piaget J^¿>°g« (^^^ó) notes that children respond who recognized music as an imiate intelU- *« '̂ff̂ ^̂ "̂ ^ ^ ^ «^ '""^'^ ^ ^ " ^ ^ ^'^^^"^
370
The Effect of Mozart's Music on Child Development in a Jordanian Kindergarten / 371
types of vocalÍ2ation and body movement. She also points out that early childhood ed- ucators and children who are non-musicians can make and understand music.
Several ancient philosophers included music as an important part of education. An extensive compendium of arts education re- search studies called "Critical Links" was released in 2002 and showed that musical instmction develops spatial reasoning and the spatial-temporal skills of understanding and using mathematical ideas and concepts (Campbell, Campbell & Dickinson, 2004).
Likewise, it was proposed that music may serve es a pre-language, with centres distinct from language centres in the cortex, available at an early age, which can access the inherent cortical spatial-temporal firing pattems and enhance the ability to perform spatial-tempo- ral reasoning (Leng & Shaw, 1991).
Research shows that music should be an essential part of early childhood experience. "It's fun, creative, and it's a proven way to develop areas of the brain for later academic tasks", said Elizabeth Stilwell, director ofthe Early Childhood Center (Lang, 1999). Many, if not most, children and adults enjoy rhythm and melody and like to listen to and participate in musical activities, and they enjoy learning through musical methods or appreciate music in the classroom as they work on nonverbal tasks (Campbell, Campbell & Dickinson, 2004).
Previous Studies There has been a number of studies in-
vestigating the effects of music on children's cognitive and social skills. For example, first-graders who participated in Kodaly music appreciation and movement five days per week, forty minutes per day, for seven months, scored significantly higher on stan- dard reading tests than a non-musical group (Campbell, 2002).
Duffy and Fuller (2000) investigated the
effectiveness of a music therapy programme on the enhancement of the social skills of children with moderate intellectual disability. Thirty-two children, aged five to ten years, from four intellectual disability centres, par- ticipated. At each centre, four children were randomly selected to participate in the music therapy program. Five social skills were targeted for intervention: turn-taking, imita- tion, vocalization, initiation and eye contact. Measures of effectiveness involved compar- ison of pre- and post-intervention scores on five target skills using a brief social skills test specifically designed for this study. The results reflect significant improvements in the five target social skills across both conditions following the 8-week intervention.
Furthermore, a study reported that three- year-olds who simply attended twice-weekly singing lessons for three years performed bet- ter than children who did not, in the arrays of abstract conceptual thinking, play improvisa- tion, originality, verbal abilities and physical coordination (Campbell, 2002).
Thompson, Schellenberg and Husain (2001) examined whether the Mozart effect is a consequence of between-condition dif- ferences in arousal and mood. Participants completed a spatial abilities test after listen- ing to music or sitting in silence. The pieces of music were a Mozart sonata (a pleasant and energetic piece) for some participants and an Albinoni Adagio (a slow, sad piece) for others. The researchers also measured en- joyment, arousal, and mood. Performance on the spatial task was better following the music than the silence condition, but only for partic- ipaints who heard Mozart. The two music se- lections also induced differential responses on the enjoyment, arousal, and mood measures.
Hallam, Price, and Katsarou (2002) com- pared arithmetic performance during silence and calming background music in 31 children, aged 11-12 years, using a within-subjects de- sign. The results showed that the music con-
372 / Education Vol. 133 No. 3
dition was associated with greater completion of arithmetic problems.
Moyeda, Gomez and Flores (2008) de- signed a program of musical activities to pro- mote discrimination of rhythmic and melodic elements and the association of auditory stim- uli with visual stimuli and motor activities. The effects of the program on the vocabulary of preschool children were evaluated and compared with the vocabulary of children participating in the curricular subject of "Ritmos, Cantos Y Juegos" (Rhythm, Songs, and Games), and that of children who were not exposed to either of the two programmes. The results showed significant increases in the receptive vocabulary only for the group exposed to the programme with musical activities. The processes that caused the in- crease are discussed, as well as the possible use of the program that was implemented as a resource for preschool language stimulation.
Wolfe and Noguchi (2009) examined the use of music to sustain the attention of young children during conditions of auditory dis- traction. Kindergarten students (N=76) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions/ groups: (a) spoken story with no distraction; (b) spoken story with distraction; (c) musical story with no distraction; (d) musical story with distraction. A one-way ANOVA was computed to access the difference in mean scores across the four experimental condi- tions. Significant results were found. Fur- ther analysis employing a Tukey post hoc/ multiple comparisons test revealed significant differences between the spoken story with distraction condition and the musical story with distraction condition.
Moreover, Wolff (1979) carried out an experimental study with first-grade children who engaged in musical activities for one year, to determine whether musical activities would have a significant effect on children's perceptual-motor development. She found that the perceptual-motor scores of the exper-
imental group were higher than the scores of the control group (Campbell, 2002).
High (1987) studied the effect of a music and movement program on the rhythmic ac- curacy of preschool children, and found that the experimental group improved its rhythmic accuracy more than the control group. The same conclusion was drawn by Moore (1984) and Burnett (1983), who implemented a music and movement program for preschool children with delayed development, and found that they improved both their motor skills and their rhythmic ability.
In addition, Zachopoulou, Tsapakidou, and Derri (2004), investigated and compared the ef- fect of a developmentally appropriate music and movement program and of a developmentally appropriate physical education program on the development of jumping and dynamic balance in children ages 4-6 years. Ninety children, 42 girls and 48 boys, participated. Fifty of them were in an experimental group and followed the music and movement program, which lasted 2 months. The results showed that the exper- imental group inq)roved significantly in both jumping and dynamic balance.
Significance Isenberg and Jalongo (2001) have identi-
fied the following benefits of music for child development:
- Psychomotor skills: exposure to music helps children refine their control over large and small movements.
- Perceptual skills: music allows chil- dren opportunities to develop percep- tual abilities, for example, recognizing a familiar tune and imitating it, or tap- ping out rhythmic pattems.
- Affective development: music natu- rally leads to emotional responses and provides many children with important and appropriate ways to express their feelings (Henniger, 2002).
The Effect of Mozart's Music on Child Development in a Jordanian Kindergarten / 373
Early musical training, even as early as age three, may enhance a child's overall mental ability, according to UC Irvine neuroscience researchers. It has long been known that in- fants recognize and respond to music, and that appreciation for works by composers such as Bach and Mozart transcends generations, ge- ography, and culture (Shaw, 2004).
Snyder (2000) indicated that music evokes emotional response and appears to open the gate to new cortical activity and higher level thinkii^. Music stimulates and motivates thinking.
The questions addressed by the current study are as follows:
1. Is there a statistically significant effect of exposure to music which accompa- nies the curriculum on social domain development for the experimental group?
2. Is there a statistically significant effect of exposure to music which accom- panies the curriculiun on cognitive domain development for the experi- mental group?
3. Is there a statistically significant effect of exposure to music which accompa- nies the curriculum on physical domain development for the experimental group?
Method
Participants Forty-two children of ages five and six, in
two KG2 classes, were selected purposefiilly firom a special school. The two KG2 classes were assigned randomly, one class as the ex- perimental group, and the other as the control group.
Procedure and measures One teacher in the experimental group was
trained to use the three CDs of "The Mozart effect: Music for children", compiled by Don
Campbell. (CampbeU,1997) The three CDs were used as follows: Volume 1 - Tune up your mind, was combined with the academic program; Volume 2 - Relax, daydream, and draw was combined with the art program and story dme; Volume 3 - Mozart in motion was combined with physical activities.
This collection was used for two contin- uous semesters, approximately eight months. Pre-post tests were applied to the two groups.
The main tool used to achieve the objec- tives of this study was "The preschool and kindergarten children's performance scale" which was established and developed by Al- Batch (2001) in Jordan. The scale consists of fifty behavioural aspects, which cover ten sub-areas, within three main domains of growth; cognitive, physical and social. Each of these domains has been embedded within a number of sub-areas.
The scale has the psychometric properties required in this study. For instance, in the area of validity, it was noticed that the signif- icance of correlated validity for the domains of the test were as follows: cognitive (0.79), physical (0.83), social (0.82), and total mark for the scale (0.84).
The indicators of reliability were extract- ed in two ways: test-retest reliability, and intemal consistency reliability. The values of the coefficients of reliability for test-retest ranged between (0.88-0.92) for the different domains, and (0.91) for the total mark. The coefficients of reliability for intemal consis- tency, using Cronbach's Alpha had values ranging between (0.82-0.91) for the different domains, and (0.89) for the total mark on the scale.
Results
To answer the three research questions Univariate Analysis of Variance was used to determine the effect of exposure to music on the development of different growth domains according to the group variable.
374 / Education Vol. 133 No. 3
Table 1.
Domain
Social
Cognitive
Physical
Estimated Marginal Means
sex
male
female
total
male
female
total
male
female
total
Exp Group
Mean
79.896
80.805
80.350
111.787
107.414
109.600
80.640
72.148
76.394
SD
2.727
3.725
2.342
3.504
4.538
2.976
1.869
2.548
1.578
Control Group
mean
61.313
55.238
58.275
75.787
70.043
72.915
68.295
60.377
64.336
SD
2.970
3.260
2.240
3.675
4.106
2.894
2.032
2.234
1.511
Total
mean
70.605
68.021
69.313
93.787
88.728
91.258
74.467
66.262
70.365
SD
1.987
2.433
1.560
2.397
2.941
1.880
1.380
1.697
1.074
Table 1 explains the estimated marginal means of "The preschool and kindergarten children's performance scale" on all social, cognitive and physical domains.
The results in Table 1 show that there is an evident difference in the marginal means between the experimental and the control groups on the social domain of 22.075 in fa- vour ofthe experimental group.
The results also demonstrate an evident difference in the marginal means between the experimental and the control groups on the cognitive domain of 36.685 in favour of the experimental group.
Moreover, the results indicate an evident difference in the marginal means between the experimental and the control groups of 12.058 in favour ofthe experimental group.
To ascertain the statistical significance of the differences on the development of social, cognitive, and physical domains, the Univar- iate Analysis of Variance was conducted to determine whether there was any statistically significant effect of exposure to Mozart's mu- sic on the different domains. Table 2 shows these results.
It is clear in Table 2 that there are statisti- cally significant effects of exposure to music on social development, as the value of F has reached 43.217, and this value is statistically
significant at level (a <.O5). Furthermore, it is evident that there are
statistically significant effects of exposure to music on cognitive development, as the value of F has reached 66.202, and this value is sta- tistically significant at level (a <.O5).
There are also statistically significant effects of exposure to music on cognitive development, as the value of F has reached 29.487, and this value is statistically signifi- cant at level (a <.O5). Returning to Table 1, it is clear that these differences are in favour of the experimental group.
Discussion
In the present study, it was found that the music of Mozart accompanying the curric- ulum significantly affected development in social, cognitive and physical domains for the kindergarten children in the experimental group compared to those in the control group.
In general, because of strong links to emotion, music in the classroom can pro- mote a positive environment that enhances children's development. Music integrates the emotional, cognitive and physical dimensions of the learner, and accelerates the quantity of information learned and retained, according to Dr. George Lozanov (as cited in Campbell, Campbell & Dickinson, 2004). In addition to
The Effect of Mozart's Music on Child Development in a Jordanian Kindergarten / 375
Table 2. Univariate Analysis of Variance Tests of Between-Subjects Effects
DomaB
Social
Cognitive
Physical
Source
prewl
Group
Sex
group * ses
Error
Corrected Total
prew2
Group
Sex
group * sex
Error
Corrected Total
prew3
Group
Sex
group * sex
Error
Corrected Total
lype n i Sum ofSquares
2884.888
4148.016
64.038
119.991
3551.284
8772.976
8621.077
9222.859
243.142
4.635
5154.638
16782.976
5286.508
1339.693
617.451
.810
1681.009
7429.833
df
1
1
1
1
37
41
1
1
1
1
37
41
1
1
1
1
37
41
Mean Square
2884.888
4148.016
64.038
119.991
95.981
8621.077
9222.859
243.142
4.635
139.315
5286.508
1339.693
617.451
.810
45.433
F
30.057
43.217
.667
1.250
61.882
66.202
1.745
.033
116.359
29.487
13.590
.018
Sig.
.000
.000
.419
.271
.000
.000
.195
.856
.000
.000
.001
.894
creating a pleasant classroom ambience, mu- sic can. be used for specific purposes. Many teachers have intentionally used music in four ways: t ) relax; to invigorate; to focus student attenticm; or to ease transitions (Campbell, Campbell & Dickinson, 2004).
Music enhances the social development of kindergarten children as it engenders calm- ness and relaxation, thus reducing impulsive- ness. Music also helps them to listen to others and commimicate more effectively, leading to an improvement in empathy, and the devel- opment of enhanced social skills. This cor- responds with Campbell's (2002) statement describing music as, "a fiiend to support and guide" ehüdren, from their first day at school, deepening their experience and enhancing their daily life, thus improving their social interaction.
Music is an indirect, non-verbal form
of communication. It can stimulate right- brain functioning, associated with feelings. Moreover, it increases children's ability to tmderstand their emotions and express their feelings, leading to improved emotional regulation. Consequently, this will lead to better social interaction with peers (Montello, 1999).
Additionally, music develops the cogni- tive domain for children. It has physiological effects on the body; listening to music has been shown to slow the listener's heart rate, activate higher-order thinking, and create a positive, relaxed, receptive state of mind that is ideal for leaming (Campbell, 2002). Music provides children with the ability to become better listeners; it alerts all their senses, espe- cially hearing. It also helps children to main- tain attention during different tasks, which improves their concentration skills. All of
376 / Education Vol. 133 No. 3
these benefits of music are important in the development of cognitive abilities. Music is considered the most direct route to thinking, because it requires neither words nor symbols to be perceived. (Snyder, 1997)
Frank Wilson, a neuroscientist, having ob- served brain scans of children as they perform certain tasks, reports that when children read words, the language centre ofthe brain lights up on his scanner, but when they hear music, the entire brain lights up like a Christmas tree (Snyder, 1997).
Furthermore, researchers have found that early exposure to music may be necessary, or, at least, may greatly enhance the development of cognitive processes. It can promote cre- ativity in children when teachers use it them- selves, in a relaxed and enjoyable manner, to encourage music production in the preschool classroom. Teachers must lead the way by chanting, singing and providing music (Beaty, 2000).
Thompson, Schellenberg and Husain (2001) and Hallam, Price, and Katsarou (2002) concurred with Beaty's statement in their studies.
The results of the experimental group in the physical domain were better than those of the control group, since the rhythm and flow of music, in an enjoyable manner, can result in increased coordination, regularity, and speed of activity, as well as movement skills' development. For young children, skipping, marching, running, or dancing to music de- velops rhythm and grace (Campbell, Camp- bell & Dickinson, 2004).
The use of music in the classroom with the experimental group ensured that the children moved their bodies. They worked through new knowledge m whole-body ways, express- ing themselves physically. Yet, in the control group, the lack of music only reinforced the expectation of young children to "sit down, be quiet, and leam" instead of actively leam- ing, performing reading exercises and drills
(Campbell, 2002). Wolff (1979), Zachopou- lou, Tsapakidou, and Derri (2004) also found this in their studies.
Mozart's music was selected to help to set the mood in the classroom to correspond to the activity taking place. The teacher planned this carefully, in an organized manner, over a long period of time, to ensure maximum im- mediate efifect on difiFerent domains.
In conclusion, it is clear that music cer- tainly plays a very distinct role in child development.
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