Finding it hard to score in maths? Combining it with music may help

Istanbul: Children do better at maths when music is a key part of their lessons, an analysis of almost 50 years of research has revealed.

It is thought that music can make maths more enjoyable, keep students engaged and help ease any fear or anxiety they have about maths. Motivation may be increased and pupils may appreciate maths more, showed the peer-reviewed article in Educational Studies.

Techniques for integrating music into maths lessons range from clapping to pieces with different rhythms when learning numbers and fractions, to using maths to design musical instruments.

“Encouraging mathematics and music teachers to plan lessons together could help ease students’ anxiety about mathematics, while also boosting achievement,” said Dr. Ayca Akin, from the Department of Software Engineering, Antalya Belek University, in Turkey.

She led the study, a metaanalysis of 55 studies from around the world, involving almost 78,000 young people from kindergarten pupils to university students, published between 1975 and 2022.

The use of music, whether in separate lessons or as part of maths classes, was associated with greater improvement in maths over time.

The integrated lessons had the biggest effect, with around 73 per cent of students who had integrated lessons doing significantly better than youngsters who didn’t have any type of musical intervention.

Some 69 per cent of students who learned how to play instruments and 58 per cent of students who had normal music lessons improved more than pupils with no musical intervention.

The results also indicate that music helps more with learning arithmetic than other types of maths and has a bigger impact on younger pupils and those learning more basic mathematical concepts.

Dr Akin pointed out that maths and music have much in common, such as the use of symbols and symmetry. Both subjects also require abstract thought and quantitative reasoning.

However, limitations of the analysis include the relatively small number of studies available for inclusion. This meant it wasn’t possible to look at the effect of factors such as gender, socio-economic status and length of musical instruction on the results.