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Lidise Moreno

Professor Trishia Briones

ENGL-1302.222

17 February 2023

Can Music Positively Affect a College Student’s Ability to Study?

Throughout many decades, college students find alternative ways to stay engaged in

course-related content they may be struggling with without causing a strain on their mental

health. Whether it ranges from a math course, or an elective course related to a student’s major,

they will review any content before a pop quiz, strenuous exam, or as simple an assignment.

Studying is a huge factor in students obtaining course information, but what can increase the

ability to obtain more information? According to research conducted by Tianying Wang, et al.,

states “Listening to music can cultivate students’ sentiment, make them have a noble spiritual

realm, broader vision, and mind, cultivate their image memory, creativity, imagination, and

observation, improve their understanding, perception, emotion and other abilities, and form a

correct aesthetic view” (8). The quote emphasizes that music alone allows the mind to open and

better the memory by understanding and observing. Music can be a form of relaxation and

tranquility to enhance comprehension for college students.

In this experiment, the participant is an 18-year-old female college student with a weight

of 155 pounds, a height of 5’4 feet, with no current health problems, but does have a family

history of diabetes developing around the early 60s. Before the experiment, the participant

mentioned that she loves listening to her favorite genres specifically since they make her feel

relaxed but energized, and studying was not always her strongest forte when trying to memorize

school-related activities. The participant listened to music while studying for her courses’
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lectures and quizzes for 5 consecutive days. The participant’s study time included from 9 AM to

12 PM. The study time included anything from reviewing lecture notes, writing notes,

completing homework, and reading articles for quiz preparation. The location of this experiment

was at a local university, Texas A&M International University, that this participant is currently

attending. The necessary supplies included the participant’s MacBook laptop, iPad, AirPods, and

a journal. The laptop was composed of all online materials for her classes, the iPad contained the

articles that needed to be read before a class quiz, AirPods to listen to music, and a journal to

write down the process of the experiment. The music played by the participant ranged from R&B

to Rap music, some of her favorite genres of music to listen to.

Moreover, the participant wrote her progress in listening to music while studying in a

journal. Every day she noted how she felt after studying her materials in her selected study times

and the information she tried to attempt to remember and what she remembered. On day one of

the experiment, the participant mentioned that she wanted to memorize information for her

Criminal Justice and History classes during her study session. She stated that she did catch

herself lip-syncing to some of her favorite songs instead of focusing on and reviewing the

content; about 15 to 25 times, she focused more on the music rather than the material. On the

contrary, the participant declared that she managed to memorize more information while

listening to music than if she was studying in silence. During day two’s study session, the

participant claimed that she felt more ecstatic to study the second time since she had a chance to

listen to her favorite music and learn at the same time. In the journal, she added an extra note

saying she only got distracted about 5 times rather than the larger amount the first time she

attempted to study with music. As stated by research conducted by Jiani Jiang, et al., “As a

specific sound source, music has been found to be beneficial for rewards, motivation, pleasure,
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stress, arousal, immunity, and social affiliations” (2). This quote is specifically what the

participant experienced when looking forward to studying to have the opportunity to listen to her

favorite music and learn at the same time.

On day three, the participant stated that she had to read a couple of chapters from a book

that was given to her in her Univ class. When reading while music was playing, she noted that

she memorized most of the reading. Later that day, the participant took a quiz for the reading and

played the same music she was listening to when reading. When she completed the quiz, she

noted that she received a perfect score. Similarly in research conducted by Kotsopoulou, et al.,

“Hall (1952) found that performance on reading comprehension tests was significantly improved

when background music was playing.” On day four, the participant had to read 2 chapters from

her music class. She never bothered to pay attention in her music class since they were lectures

covering historical music. The opportunity to be engaged in the readings that never fascinated

her before, stimulated her to drive to learn and stay focused during her readings. She stated that

she covered more of the readings by herself when listening to R&B music than when she read

with her professor.

Lastly, on day five, the participant declared that studying while playing music enhanced

her ability to redeem more content from her classes, motivated her to continue doing her work

promptly, and in addition improve her overall grades. The participant stated that with positive

outcomes throughout this experiment, she will most certainly continue following these new

studying protocols. She emphasized that R&B music helped her focus a lot more than her other

favorite music genre, Rap. The slow beats and soothing voices of her favorite artists made her

more relaxed and patient with herself since she tends to get agitated when she’s been studying

for a long period. Contrarily, the participant stressed a bit more when listening to rap music since
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the music was louder and had more lyrics to the songs. Additionally, she would get distracted

and would sing along to more rap songs than R&B songs. The question used to lead this

experiment was answered; music can positively affect a student’s ability to study. Furthermore,

the results and research conducted by other individuals displayed that music motivated students

to get their work done without feeling rushed or stressed out.

Overall, college students can actively use music while studying since it causes focus and

relaxation for them. High scholars are notoriously known as high achievers in their academics

and will strive to the necessary lengths to have high performance in their college courses. When

discovering different methods along the education journey to see what methods best fit a

student’s ability to grasp content and reading from class lectures; one of the methods is studying

while listening to music. It’s one of the multiple effective methods a student can use to not only

acquire information but also alleviate possible mental strains in their mental health.
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Works Cited

Jiang, Jiani, et al. “Combining Music and Indoor Spatial Factors Helps to Improve College

Students’ Emotion During Communication.” Frontiers in Psychology, Frontiers Media

S.A., 1 Sept. 2021, https://doaj.org/article/99c96d7d1dfe48d696fb0b4b3180b9e5

Kotsopoulou, Anastasia, and Susan Hallam. “The Perceived Impact of Playing Music While

Studying: Age and Cultural Differences.” Taylor & Francis, 8 Jan. 2010,

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03055690903424774?scroll=top&needAcce

ss=true&role=tab#2b85d6ca-6520-4a3d-8e4a-aa9f2ee3f33d-b6de7b7c-de82-45a5-9538-

313dd15c6659

Lemaire, Elise Cournoyer. “The Effect of Background Music on Episodic Memory -

ProQuest.” Pro Quest, Scholarly Journal, Mar. 2019,

https://www.proquest.com/docview/2226071892?pq-origsite=primo

Wang, Tianying, et al. “Analysis and Research on the Influence of Music on Students’ Mental

Health under the Background of Deep Learning.” Frontiers in Psychology, Frontiers Media

S.A., 1 Oct. 2022, https://doaj.org/article/a9c14f12e7f443949899a5c1b075d196