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Learning and Individual Differences 22 (2012) 258262

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Learning and Individual Differences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/lindif

Music during lectures: Will students learn better?

Fabrice Dosseville a,, Sylvain Laborde a, b, Nicolas Scelles a
a
b

Universit de Caen Basse-Normandie, EA4260, France

German Sport University Kln, Institute of Psychology, Germany

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 9 July 2010
Received in revised form 7 October 2011
Accepted 21 October 2011
Keywords:
Academic performance
Affective states
Learning environment
Multiple choice questionnaire

a b s t r a c t
We investigated the inuence of music during learning on the academic performance of undergraduate students, and more particularly the inuence of affects induced by music. Altogether 249 students were involved
in the study, divided into a control group and an experimental group. Both groups attended the same videotaped lecture, with the addition of classical music for the experimental group. Just after the lecture, both
groups had to ll out a multiple choice questionnaire (MCQ) aimed to assess their learning during the lecture.
The MCQ score of the experimental group was signicantly higher than that of the control group. Affect just
before the exam predicted signicantly the MCQ-score, however music accounted for an additional part of
variance. The effect of music on academic performance is not only about affects, and further research should
investigate the underlying mechanisms resulting from a change in the perception of the learning
environment.
2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Professors, readers, and lecturers hope that the lessons they teach
will help students prepare for future jobs by developing their competencies. While several new educational methods have been introduced to improve students' academic performance, such as clickers,
e-lectures, and podcasts (Evans, 2008; Mayer et al., 2009;
Stephenson, Brown, & Grifn, 2008), traditional and PowerPoint lectures are still an important and common approach to teaching students in higher education (see Savoy, Proctor, & Salvendy, 2009).
Despite lacking interactivity between teacher and students, requiring
the continuous attention of students (Bloom, 1953; Smith, 2001), and
being unpopular among students and educational advisers, lectures
are still used in university courses because they bear some advantages over other methods (see Charlton, 2006). We assumed that
changing the learning context or environment during lectures
would be a way to improve students' academic performance. In this
study, we sought to change the learning environment through
music, suggested to elicit affective states, in order to improve learning
outcomes.
1.1. Learning environment
Learning environments can be conceptualized in terms of observable characteristics, such as school buildings, the layout of a classroom, or the materials used for instruction, or in terms of observed
Corresponding author at: Universit de Caen Basse-Normandie, EA 4260, 2, boulevard du Marchal Juin, F14032 Caen, France.
E-mail address: fabrice.dosseville@unicaen.fr (F. Dosseville).
1041-6080/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2011.10.004

interactions between students and teachers (Frenzel, Pekrun, &

Goetz, 2007). Doubtless, the learning environment is a key element
of motivational, cognitive, and emotional outcomes (Karabenick,
2004; Ludtke, Robitzsch, Trautwein, & Kunter, 2009; Vermetten,
Vermunt, & Lodewijks, 2002). Most of the studies that have assessed
the inuence of learning environments have done so via observers',
teachers' or students' reports and their associations with the students'
achievement or motivation. Only a few researchers have studied the
impact of different learning environments on academic performance
directly (Besanon & Lubart, 2008; Govender, 2009). The affect triggered by changing the characteristics of the learning environment
could inuence learning outcomes in a critical manner.
1.2. Affective states
Many researchers have shown that academic performance can be
inuenced by students' affective states or motivational and cognitive
processes (Lewis, Huebner, Reschly, & Valois, 2009; Olafson & Ferraro,
2001; Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, & Perry, 2002; Pekrun, Elliot, & Maier,
2009). Existing research on the affective contributors to achievement
has often been conned to the effect of anxiety on academic performance (Musch & Broder, 1999; Schutz & Pekrun, 2007). Students'
anxiety during exams might be inuenced by their cognitive abilities.
For instance, students with higher cognitive abilities have been found
to experience more positive affect when taking an exam (Goetz,
Preckel, Pekrun, & Hall, 2007). In turn, positive moods have been
found to produce more creativity than neutral or negative moods in
a recent meta-analysis (Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2008). Moreover,
positive emotions in educational contexts might be associated with
academic engagement (Reschly, Huebner, Appleton, & Antaramian,

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F. Dosseville et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 22 (2012) 258262

2008). Yet there is a lack of empirical evidence concerning the effects

of positive affect induction in connection with learning and academic
performance in universities. In addition, some research has shown
that changing the learning environment could trigger an experience
with a positive affect and in turn increase motivation among students
(Susskind, 2005), although no impact was found on course performance (Susskind, 2008). Given these preliminary ndings, the inuence of positive affect on academic performance seems to be a
promising research area, one that has not yet been fully investigated.
1.3. Music and learning performance
A simple way to elicit these affective states is through music
(Juslin & Vastfjall, 2008; Scherer & Zentner, 2001). A well-known
yet controversial effect in the literature is the Mozart effect
(Chabris, 1999; Rauscher, Shaw, & Ky, 1993). In the former research
(Rauscher, Shaw, & Ky, 1993), the authors found that listening to Mozart improved spatial abilities. However, further replications showed
that although listening to music did improve some cognitive abilities,
this was not specic to Mozart's music. Three hypotheses can explain
this effect: the neurological, the arousal, and the preference hypothesis (Jones, West, & Estell, 2006; Pietschnig, Voracek, & Formann,
2010). In summary, previous research showed that music can affect
arousal and mood, inuencing performance on specic cognitive
tasks, such as those requiring spatialtemporal abilities (Husain,
Thompson, & Schellenberg, 2002; Jausovec, Jausovec, & Gerlic, 2006;
Thompson, Schellenberg, & Husain, 2001). However, to the best of
our knowledge, the inuence of music on more complex cognitive
tasks, such as learning during a lecture and then taking an exam
that involves memory, reasoning, and comprehension, has never
been examined.
Therefore, our aim with this study was to investigate how listening to music during learning inuences the affective states of undergraduate students and their performance. We hypothesized that the
main effect of music on academic performance would be through affect elicitation. More precisely, we hypothesized that learning with
music would result in better exam performance due to the elicitation
of positive affect, and to the reduction of negative affect.

259

topic of the lecture was an aspect of sport psychology (specically,

Expertise in Athletes) and had never been viewed by the students
before.
2.2.2. Multiple-choice questionnaire
A multiple-choice questionnaire (MCQ) was created from the lecture material. We followed Holsgrove (1992) to write appropriate
questions: (a) use correct grammar, (b) avoid negative stems, (c)
avoid overly complicated questions, (d) avoid ambiguity, and (e) do
not use trick questions. Altogether there were 25 questions with a
set of ve answers, of which one was correct. Alternate forms of the
test were created to prevent copying (Houston, 1983).
2.2.3. Music
The music chosen to elicit a positive affect was classical music
without lyrics so that understanding the lecture would not be disturbed. No information was given to the students about the presence
of music. Six pieces of music were selected from a set of music that
had already been used to elicit positive affect (Eich, Ng, Macaulay,
Percy, & Grebneva, 2007): (a) A Little Night Music, Allegro (Mozart;
6:26); (b) Concerto for Four Violins in D Major (Vivaldi; 7:27); (c)
The Blue Danube (Andr Rieu; 6:55); (d) Nutcracker (Tchaikovsky;
6:04); (e) Brandenburg Concertos No. 3, Allegro Moderato (Bach;
5:30); and (f) Ninth Symphony, Ode to Joy (Beethoven; 6:54). The
volume of the lecture was the same in both the experimental and
control conditions. In the experimental condition, the volume of the
music was lower than the one of the lecture.
2.2.4. Affect measure
To measure affect, we chose an approach used by Watson, Clark,
and Tellegen (1988) that categorizes discrete emotions into higherorder dimensions on the basis of their overlapping properties. These
authors developed the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule
(PANAS, French version by Gaudreau, Sanchez, & Blondin, 2006), a
questionnaire containing 10 items to assess positive affect (PA; e.g.,
active, enthusiastic) and 10 items to assess negative affect (NA; e.g.,
upset, guilty). The students had to rate to what degree they currently
felt each emotion on a Likert scale of 1 (very little) to 5 (very much).

2. Method

2.3. Procedure

2.1. Participants

Both groups attended the same multimedia presentation, with the

addition that the experimental group was exposed to music. Affective
state was assessed with the PANAS before (Time 1, T1) and after
(Time 2, T2) the lecture. Before the lecture, students were told to concentrate, and that they would have to take an exam based on the lecture afterwards. They were not allowed to take notes. Immediately
after the lecture, they had to ll out the PANAS and then the MCQ
within 15 min. To control for researcher effects, which are frequent
in the music and learning literature (Hetland, 2000), the authors
were not present during the experiment. Moreover, the teachers
who supervised the students were blind to the hypotheses.

The sample included 249 rst- and second-year undergraduate

sport sciences students who were all enrolled in an introductory
sport psychology course and received course credit for participating
in this study. The students were assigned to two groups that were
equal on academic performance. The mean examination score of the
rst semester was used as a criterion variable to assign participants
to the two groups, as it represents students' overall academic performance in similar exam conditions. The two groups were the control
group (n = 120; 25 females and 95 males; Mage = 19.4 years, age
range 1823 years, Mexamination score = 10.20, SDexamination score =
2.47) and the experimental group (n = 129; 34 females and 95
males; Mage = 19.8 years, age range 1823 years, Mexamination score =
10.23, SDexamination score = 2.48). A t-test revealed that there was no
signicant difference between the mean examination score of both
groups (t = 0.135, p > 0.05).
2.2. Material
2.2.1. Multimedia presentation
A 1-h lecture was video-recorded and combined with synchronized slides. The rst author was the course instructor and gave the
lecture. The students had already received some video-based lectures
during the rst semester and were familiar with the procedure. The

2.4. Data analysis

First, to check for affect induction, we ran a t-test to compare baseline affect between the experimental and the control group, for both
PA and NA. Second, to check for the development of affect and for
the inuence of the experimental condition, we ran a 2 2 repeated
measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), with one
between-groups factor (two conditions: control group and experimental group), one within-group factor (two assessment times: T1
and T2), and two dependent variables (PA and NA). Third, we ran a
t-test to compare the MCQ score of the two groups. Finally, we tested
the inuence of affect on academic performance through hierarchical
regression analyses, with two models. In both models we used as

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F. Dosseville et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 22 (2012) 258262

Table 1
Descriptive statistics.

Table 3
Hierarchical regression analyses with MCQ-score as dependent variable.

Control group
M
MCQ score
PA T1
PA T2
NA T1
NA T2
PA T1 T2
NA T1 T2

12.42
2.71
2.28
1.58
1.32
0.44
0.27

Experimental
group

Predictor
variable

SD

SD

3.68
0.53
0.63
0.46
0.36
0.55
0.34

0.73
0.69
0.78
0.73

14.46
2.67
2.59
1.48
1.25
0.08
0.24

4.04
0.48
0.47
0.45
0.33
0.26
0.37

0.76
0.72
0.75
0.71

MCQ = multiple choice questionnaire; PA = positive affect; NA = negative affect;

T1 = Time 1 (before lecture); T2 = Time 2 (after lecture). : internal consistency.
Mean differences were calculated with t-tests.
p b 0.05.
p b 0.01.

Standard
error

Standardized
beta

t-Value

Dependent variable: MCQ-score

Step 1
PA T2
1.53 0.43
NA T2
2.05 0.72
Step 2
Music
1.56
.51

0.22
0.18

3.55
2.85

0.20

3.10

Dependent variable: MCQ-score

Step 1
PA T1 T2
0.76 0.55
NA T1 T2 0.01 0.72
Step 2
Music
2.07 0.53

0.09
0.00

Adjusted
R2 change

0.27

0.06

0.33

0.10

0.09

0.00

0.26

0.05

1.39
0.02
3.89

0.26

PA = positive affect; NA = negative affect; T1 = Time 1 (before lecture); T2 = Time 2

(after lecture).
p b 0.05.
p b 0.01.

dependent variable the MCQ-score. In the rst hierarchical regression, we entered as predictors at step 1 PA and NA at T2, and at step
2 the experimental condition, coded 1 for the control condition, and
2 for the music condition. In the second hierarchical regression analysis, we entered as predictors at step 1 PA and NA change between T1
and T2. The change values were calculated according to the following
formula: PAT1 T2 = PAT1 PAT2; and NAT1 T2 = NAT1 NAT2. At
step 2 we entered the experimental condition.

3.3. Affect as a predictor of academic performance

Hierarchical regression analyses are presented in Table 3. The rst
hierarchical regression showed that PA and NA at T2 explain signicantly 6% of MCQ-score variance. More precisely, PAT2 was found to
predict positively the MCQ-score ( = 0.22), while NAT2 was found
to predict negatively the MCQ-score ( = 0.18). Moreover, music
was found to explain 4% of additional variance for the MCQ-score
( = 0.20). The overall model accounts for 10% of MCQ-score
variance.
The second hierarchical regression showed that the change in affect does not predict any MCQ-score variance, however the music explains signicantly 5% of the MCQ-score ( = 0.26). The overall
model accounts for 5% of MCQ-score variance.

3. Results
Descriptive statistics are shown in Table 1. Correlations between
full study variables are shown in Table 2. Results are now presented
according to affect induction, MCQ score, and predictive power of affect for academic outcome.
3.1. Affect induction
The baseline affect of the two groups did not differ, neither for PA
(t = 0.705, p > 0.05) nor for NA (t = 1.724, p > 0.05). The 2 2 repeated measures MANOVA revealed a main effect of assessment
time on PA and NA: they both decreased between T1 and T2; for PA,
F(1, 247) = 90.783, p b 0.001, p = 0.27 and for NA, F(1, 247) =
125.421, p b 0.001, p = 0.34. Further, we found a signicant interaction effect between assessment time and condition for PA, F(1, 247) =
42.630, p b 0.001, p = 0.15, where PA decreased more in the control
group than in the experimental group; no such effect was found for
NA.

4. Discussion
We sought to examine the inuence of affect elicitation through
music during a lecture on academic performance. We now discuss
the ndings as they relate to the literature.
4.1. Affect induction
Attending a lecture is not a particularly enjoyable task for students, and in this study, we observed that a decrease in PA was
much more signicant in the control group than in the experimental
group. We believe that music played a role in maintaining PA during
the lecture (Juslin, Lijestrom, Vastfjall, Barradas, & Silva, 2008; Juslin
& Vastfjall, 2008) and because the musical pieces were specically selected to elicit PA in people (Eich et al., 2007). However, no other
sound condition was included in the design, such as preferred

3.2. MCQ score

The MCQ score for the experimental group (M = 14.5) was significantly higher than that for the control group (M = 12.2), with
t = 4.171, p b 0.001, d = 0.53.
Table 2
Correlations between full study variables.
MCQ-score
MCQ-score
Exp. cond.
PA T1
NA T1
PA T2
NA T2
PA change
NA change

0.26
0.15
0.12
0.20
0.16
0.09
0.00

Exp. cond.

PAT1

0.05
0.11
0.27

0.13
0.64

0.10
0.38
0.04

0.10
0.30
0.06

NAT1

PAT2

NAT2

PA change

NA change

0.11
0.64
0.00
0.67

0.10
0.54
0.05

0.00
0.14

0.00

PA = positive affect; NA = negative affect; T1 = Time 1 (before lecture); T2 = Time 2 (after lecture). Exp. cond.: experimental condition; PA change: PAT1 PAT2; and NA change:
NAT1 NAT2.
p b 0.05.
p b 0.01.

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F. Dosseville et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 22 (2012) 258262

music, another musical genre, or white noise. Consequently, further

research should include these conditions to determine the real inuence of classical music on academic learning.
Music could have induced a change in the students' perception of
the learning environment (Hardr, Crowson, DeBacker, & White,
2007; Nijhuis, Segers, & Gijselaers, 2008), making it more attractive,
which could have resulted in increased motivation (Susskind, 2005)
and in turn increased academic performance (Steinmayr & Spinath,
2009). To clarify whether motivation was involved in this process,
this variable should be controlled in further studies (Schwinger,
Steinmayr, & Spinath, 2009), using an academic motivation scale
(Vallerand et al., 1992), for example. Moreover, further research
should be conducted to see whether using music during lectures on
a long-term basis still triggers the same effects. Finally, students' appraisal of the situation should be taken into account. It is possible
that the strength of engagement, through the intensity of attraction,
could inuence the motivational forces at stake (Higgins, 2006;
Reschly et al., 2008). Engagement strength might differ according to
music preference, a concept that has been studied by Jones et al.
(2006). Further research should look into the inuence of music preference on academic learning.
4.2. MCQ score
The MCQ score for the experimental group was signicantly
higher than that for the control group. This means that music could
have played a role in the academic outcome. In the past, music was
found to inuence cognitive tasks (Husain et al., 2002) and learning
(Jausovec et al., 2006) directly, but these studies were focused on
very specic abilities (i.e., spatial abilities). In contrast, this study
lasted for the duration of a 1-h lecture and involved a large range of
cognitive abilities. It is possible that music, provoking a change in
the learning environment (Modell, DeMiero, & Rose, 2009),
inuenced the students' motivation to remain focused during the
lecture, which led to better performance on the MCQ. However, and
this constitutes a limitation of our study, we did not examine the
students' motivation. This nding could also be explained by the
potential activating effect of music (Pietschnig et al., 2010; Steele,
2000; Thompson et al., 2001), which could have in turn improved
the cognitive functioning. In addition, it should be noticed that the
MCQ-score might have been inuenced by prior knowledge, even if
the students had not studied the topic of the lecture before at university, which was not assessed beforehand. Finally, a last limitation regarding the MCQ-test is its unknown validity.
4.3. Affect as a predictor of academic performance
The rst hierarchical regression analysis revealed that affect at T2
(i.e., just before taking the exam) predicted signicantly the MCQscore, positively for PA, and negatively for NA. The inuence of affect
could be related to achievement goals (Pekrun et al., 2009) and might
be used to sustain motivation (Armitage, 2008). However, further research should look into the role of affect in more detail linking it with
appraisal (Higgins, 2006), for example, to see whether exams are appraised as a challenge or a threat by students (Giacobbi, Tuccitto, &
Frye, 2007). This could lead to the development of new methods to
foster students' positive affect and to help them appraise events in a
positive way through manipulation of the learning environment.
The second hierarchical regression analyses showed that a change
in affect before and after the lecture, for both PA and NA, did not predict the MCQ score. This means that if affect did inuence academic
performance, it was not due to the change in affect induced by
music during the lecture. However, we have to keep in mind that
only the subjective component of emotions was assessed here, yet
emotions can be identied by several components, such as the physiological one (Scherer, 2005). Studying the physiological component

261

of emotions in further research might lend support to the argument

that arousal provoked by music has an inuence on learning abilities
(Jones et al., 2006).
Interestingly, in both regression models music was found to account signicantly for an additional part of the MCQ-score variance.
This means that affects elicited by music are not the only responsible
mechanisms for the increase of academic performance. Further research should therefore aim to determine the other mechanisms triggered by music which may have an inuence on academic
performance.
Finally, we have to consider that individual differences may inuence affect during exams, as proposed recently by Laborde, Dosseville,
and Scelles (2010). In this study, the authors found that students possessing higher trait emotional intelligence had better academic performance, and they hypothesized that these students would manage
their stress better during an exam, a hypothesis which was recently
supported by ndings with physiological data (i.e., heart rate variability; Laborde, Brll, Weber, & Anders, 2011).
5. Conclusion
This study provided valuable insight into the inuence of the
learning environment on academic outcome, and specically, the inuence of classical music on MCQ performance following a lecture.
Even if the underlying mechanisms of the inuence of music on learning during a lecture remain unclear, the necessity for more research
about the role of affect and motivation in the academic environment
is apparent. This experimental study provided a good example of a
cost-effective way to enhance learning during lectures, which remains the principal way of teaching at universities in many countries.
Finally, when wondering whether the effects of the classical music
heard during the lecture also lasted through the exam, it could be
helpful to refer to a famous music critic who stated: Mozart has
the privilege of a genius: when we hear a piece of Mozart, the following silence still belongs to him.
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