Does headphone use improve study or in-class learning?
By Dr @James Donnelly, Clinical Psychologist, Cairnmillar Institute
Students struggle with school-related stress and other psychological factors that can make learning challenging and some have tried using headphones so they can listen to music while studying or attending class. Whether this helps learning, reduces social anxiety or improves emotion regulation has been investigated for over 50 years (see for example, Smith & Morris, 1976). However, it is a difficult question to answer as parents, young people and psychological scientists try to determine the value of this progressively more popular approach.
We all turn to the internet as a first source of evidence but some of those providing information online do not fully consider what is required to properly test headphone utility or how individual differences among students need to be assessed. Reports from individual students who note that headphone music help them stay calmer, or attend better, and therefore learn better, suggests that what seems like a quick fix is the answer. Although this may be the case for some, careful research and clinical evidence indicates that the quick fix can do more harm than good in the long run, but it depends on several factors.
The complexity starts with the important, unique strengths and needs of each student so investigators, teachers and parents who try to tease apart all the brain processing, social and developmental variables must ensure that research findings about one group of students don’t get applied to other students. The young person we are trying to support may be of a different age, have a unique personality type (for example, extreme introverts versus extraverts), or have a medical or psychological condition, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Most studies involve a limited range of students and only assess some of the contributing variables. Some studies focus on students who have a specific disorder, so the results don’t apply to those without the specific condition. Alternatively, investigators choose to not include anyone who has any kind of developmental, mood or medical disorder (anyone neurodiversity) so applying the findings to a student who is quite unique is not appropriate.
A quick Google search indicates that what prominently appears online is not based on rigorous research. Even for the reports based on solid research, one has to drill way down to determine who was in the study and how the investigators’ claims about positive, negative or no effects on mood regulation or academic enhancement were demonstrated. So, what do the good studies suggest about whether headphones help or get in the way of student learning goals? The first consideration of course is whether the student has any learning goals or if school is just a place they are forced to go? For some students they feel they have to just tolerate school until they can do what they really want. The issue of motivation for learning and the barriers to bringing curiosity and a desire to learn is another complicated topic for another day.
Some students may feel so overwhelmed due to social anxiety or difficulties in learning or a lack of emotion regulation skills due to past trauma that they just want to avoid the challenges that being at school can bring. For the clinical conditions that make a student feel like headphones are their only option to cope, it is essential that they get proper clinical psychological care to address the mental health reasons as the headphones can be serving as an avoidance strategy that maintains the underlying problems. In short, headphones for some students are a tool for avoiding what feels like an impossible, endless series of social and academic challenges, but approved psychological treatments are far more likely to address the underlying causes and promote empowerment and improved wellness than just trying to block out what is happening socially. Unfortunately, the appropriate treatment is not always easy to find so instead short-term avoidant solutions get applied by young people who are struggling in the classroom for various reasons.
Whatever the case, all students deserve proper attention to discover what their experience might be and how to best help them succeed. Headphones may be part of the solution but are unlikely to solve motivation issues or improve clinical psychological conditions in the long term. It is likely that attention to content being delivered by teachers or classroom discussions will be reduced and learning can’t happen if less information gets in.
After a careful search of the research literature, I have tried to summarise some findings that appear consistently but may still require testing with individual students. There is some good evidence to support the use of headphones (with or without music) but not necessarily for enhancing studying or classroom learning:
1. Listening to music can make you more alert; what you do once you are alert depends on other factors. You may just be paying better attention to the music.
2. Listening to some kinds of music can improve your mood which could improve your attention to some tasks and willingness to even try. This could be helpful for some students depending on the type of music and volume, and if the student is doing independent work.
3. Some studies show decreased anxiety while others show an increase while listening to music; music that is loud and over-activating, especially for 'extraverts' can negatively affect mood and learning.
4. Generally, low volume music seems to have a more positive effect than that with higher volume (around the level of sound from a vacuum cleaner); music with lyrics, rap or pop styles, or music 'chosen by the student' have all shown negative effects on learning both in laboratory and classroom settings.
5. For those with specific neurological conditions or Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), simply blocking out ambient noise using ear plugs or headphones can decrease agitation and may, for those with similar conditions, improve attention to some tasks but not others. Note that some with the same diagnosis find the ear plugs or headphones so uncomfortable that they do better without them.
As many parents, teachers, professionals and young people know, being a skilled, sceptical consumer of information on the internet is wise. Some who report on poorly conducted studies make gross generalisations so critical thinking on the topic is required. For example, findings based on the testing of 30 university students during studying at home get reported on webpages offering solutions for high school students with ADHD or ASD trying to learn in a classroom.
In contrast, there are many studies conducted by cognitive scientists who control for variables ignored by others that show repeatedly that silence is better than music. They also show that the negative effects of music on academic performance (either during studying or in the classroom) is WORSE for those describing themselves as ‘introverts’ (this is likely to include those with high levels of social anxiety or what might be termed PTSD). Note that even the most valid studies about headphone use typically do not include young people with mental health disorders.
The other issue for students learning in class or studying while listening to music but then not getting assessed or tested under similar sound conditions is the massive context effects. Switching from music to normal testing room or class noise means recall for learned info goes down. This has been shown repeatedly in studies of ‘context dependent memory’.
Something that is learned or studied in particular conditions will be remembered best if those conditions are repeated during the testing phase otherwise the student will be less likely to remember things that were studied and learned. Context not only depends on music and background noise, but also on the certain smells, the time of day, alcohol or drug states, and the mood in which one is in at the time of learning. Context dependency is important and relevant to the headphone question because students may hinder their learning by listening to music while studying and not while taking the test or vice versa. Testing situations are usually standardised at school so studying under conditions as close to those typical school or testing conditions can be very helpful.
Lastly, there is also significant evidence for two other rules regarding human brain functioning that apply to those who are neurotypical and those who may be neurodiverse. Working memory (the brain process that briefly holds and manipulates information you are trying to learn) has a limited capacity. If part of working memory is occupied by distracting stimuli or high negative emotions part of what you are trying to learn will get missed or distorted. Limiting the distracting information (such as music coming through headphones) and managing the negative emotions using solid clinical techniques can prevent this problem. The second rule is that dividing your attention between two tasks results in poorer performance on both tasks. As attention is the essential first step in learning, fully focusing it on the information to be learned is key.
As a scientist/clinician who has been assessing brain differences for 30 years, I recognise that it is challenging to judge what can help students learn and what gets in the way. Teachers may be expert at understanding what works for some students who may be neurodiverse but a referral for an assessment by a clinical or neuropsychologist can help define a child or young person’s strengths and what might be contributing to difficulties learning. Working with teachers, parents and the child or young person, psychologists use a range of assessment methods to determine what an individual may need so they have the best chance to learn.
Sample of References:
Smith, C.A. & Morris, L.W. (1976). Effects of Stimulative and Sedative Music on Cognitive and Emotional Components of Anxiety. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1976.38.3c.1187.
In 66 university psychology students, stimulative music significantly increased both worry and emotionality while sedative music had no effect on anxiety relative to that of the quiet condition, control group. Test performance was not affected by the music.
Smith, C. A., & Morris, L. W. (1977). Differential effects of stimulative and sedative music on anxiety, concentration, and performance. Psychological Reports, 41(3, Pt 2), 1047–1053.
Subjects were 30 university music students and 30 psychology students. Compared with sedative music, stimulating music increased worry scores, interfered with concentration, and resulted in lower student expectancies for performance.
Dobbs, S., Furnham, A., & McClelland, A. (2011). The effect of background music and noise on the cognitive test performance of introverts and extraverts. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25(2), 307–313.
Furnham, A., & Bradley, A. (1997). Music while you work: The differential distraction of background music on the cognitive test performance of introverts and extraverts. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 11(5), 445-455.
University participants performed a memory test with both an immediate and a delayed recall component and a reading comprehension test. They were tested in pop music and silence conditions. Results indicated that immediate and delayed recall on the memory test was severely impaired for both introverts and extraverts when the pop music was played, and introverts did worse than extroverts on both memory and reading comprehension. However, the authors also noted that background noise, such as television, music, and chatter could slightly improve performance on complex cognitive tasks for some extraverts, but again it significantly impaired introverts’ performance.