Recently published in the Journal of Educational Psychology®, a study of 112,000 high school students found that students who had participated in school band or orchestra programs had higher science, math, and English exam scores, even when controlling for gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background and prior standard test scores.
According to the Peter Gouzouasis, PhD and his co-authors, Martin Guhn, PhD and Scott Emerson, MSc: “On average, the children who learned to play a musical instrument for many years, and were now playing in high school band and orchestra, were the equivalent of about one academic year ahead of their peers with regard to their English, mathematics and science skills, as measured by their exam grades.”
Read the full article from June 2019 here at the American Psycological Association.