Does music have charms to boost the brain?
From the _New Scientist_ e-mail newsletter: - Glenn Schellenberg, a psychologist from the University of Toronto at Mississauga, randomly assigned 144 6-year-olds to four groups. Over nine months the groups took either keyboard, voice or drama lessons at the prestigious Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. The control group had no extra-curricular training. IQ was measured with standard tests before and after training. The effect was small, with a rise of just 7 IQ points for the keyboard and voice groups, compared with 4 in the drama and control groups. Ken Steele of Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina says the effect is likely to be transient. Targeted experiences may initially move you slightly ahead of peers, he says, but your peers will eventually have similar experiences and catch up. I think this guy, Ken Steele, whoever he is, is too pessimistic. Some kids take music lessons for many years, and many who learn to play an instrument play (and practice at it) all their life. Some even promise themselves they're going to go back to it (ahem) if it wasn't for all these darn e-mails to deal with first. So its transient nature when stopped isn't a serious impediment to getting smarter. Perhaps it's like Prozac, which you have to keep taking to maintain the effect. Take two chords and call me in the morning. As for consulting this Ken Steele, it probably has something to do with his alleged expertise in debunking the Mozart effect. But this is no Mozart effect. The Mozart effect (assuming it exists, which it doesn't) requires only passively listening to a few minutes of Wolfie's best. But learning music requires time, effort, hard work, dedication (ask me how to get to Carnegie Hall). That this could affect IQ is much more plausible. I'm ready to believe it. But the question of placebo effects always rears its cynical head. In this study, it was dealt with by including a group given drama lessons, presumed not to work if music alone was magic. At this point, I have to say, uh-oh. Because they did a seriously suspicious thing. THEY COMBINED THE NO LESSONS CONTROL WITH THE DRAMA CONTROL [Please excuse my capitals]. This negates the special value of using the drama group as a full-featured placebo condition. They provided means and standard deviations. I couldn't use this to do a test using change scores (the most sensitive method) but at least I could use it to do t-tests on the post-treatment scores. Results: Keyboard vs Drama: p= 0.76, not significant Voice vs Drama: p = 0.26, not significant It looks to me as though this may another example of data-torturing. Shame on them if that's the case. BTW, the pre-print of their work is available at http://www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3psygs/MusicLessons.pdf Oh, and one more thing. Six kids dropped out of the keyboard group, four dropped out of voice, but only two out of drama, and none out of no lessons. If it was the dummies who couldn't hack it (plausible), the fact that more dropped out of music could be the source of any small improvement in that group (but it would be artifactual). Stephen ___ Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://faculty.frostburg.edu/psyc/southerly/tips/index.htm ___ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Does music have charms to boost the brain?
Stephen Black wrote: From the _New Scientist_ e-mail newsletter: - Glenn Schellenberg, a psychologist from the University of Toronto at Mississauga, randomly assigned 144 6-year-olds to four groups. Over nine months the groups took either keyboard, voice or drama lessons at the prestigious Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. The control group had no extra-curricular training. IQ was measured with standard tests before and after training. The effect was small, with a rise of just 7 IQ points for the keyboard and voice groups, compared with 4 in the drama and control groups. Ken Steele of Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina says the effect is likely to be transient. Targeted experiences may initially move you slightly ahead of peers, he says, but your peers will eventually have similar experiences and catch up. I think this guy, Ken Steele, whoever he is, is too pessimistic. But the question of placebo effects always rears its cynical head. In this study, it was dealt with by including a group given drama lessons, presumed not to work if music alone was magic. At this point, I have to say, uh-oh. Because they did a seriously suspicious thing. THEY COMBINED THE NO LESSONS CONTROL WITH THE DRAMA CONTROL [Please excuse my capitals]. This negates the special value of using the drama group as a full-featured placebo condition. It looks to me as though this may another example of data-torturing. Shame on them if that's the case. Schellenberg had pretreatment and posttreatment scores for 4 treatment conditions (keyboard, voice, drama, and no-lessons). One wonders why an ANCOVA was not done or at least a 1-way ANOVA on the post-treatment scores--followed by contrasts. Guess what? The posttreatment ANOVA is F(3, 128) = 2.49, p .05. Shame on the PS reviewers who permitted public data-torturing. I tried to explain this data-analysis issue to the reporter. BTW, the pre-print of their work is available at http://www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3psygs/MusicLessons.pdf Oh, and one more thing. Six kids dropped out of the keyboard group, four dropped out of voice, but only two out of drama, and none out of no lessons. If it was the dummies who couldn't hack it (plausible), the fact that more dropped out of music could be the source of any small improvement in that group (but it would be artifactual). Stephen ___ Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://faculty.frostburg.edu/psyc/southerly/tips/index.htm ___ --- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA --- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Does music have charms to boost the brain?
At 10:51 AM -0400 7/27/04, Ken Steele wrote: Schellenberg had pretreatment and posttreatment scores for 4 treatment conditions (keyboard, voice, drama, and no-lessons). One wonders why an ANCOVA was not done or at least a 1-way ANOVA on the post-treatment scores--followed by contrasts. Guess what? The posttreatment ANOVA is F(3, 128) = 2.49, p .05. Leading to the cynical supposition that maybe it _was_ done. -- * PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Psychology Department507-389-6217 * * 23 Armstrong Hall Minnesota State University, Mankato * *http://www.mnsu.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html* --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Dirty Lessons
The question remains: are there any systematic data behind these opinions. It's been a while since I read Wingspan, but as I recall it's rather soft. I also would be interesting in knowing what the research says about this particular issue. Are there any empirical studies investigating faculty's perceptions of students, how they rank the importance of their various roles, their level of commitment to their university versus their discipline, etc. I've known professors that care a lot about students and I've known some that see them as an unfortunate intrusion on other more important professional activities. I don't think this is a situation of all professors care about their students versus no professors care about their students. My guess is that most professors care about their students but they have different ways of expressing it and believe certain ways of caring are more appropriate and more professional. I'm reminded of a engineering colleague of mine who doesn't think its his right to talk about personal issues with students or get involved in their personal life, but he will bend over backwards to help his students succeed in engineering classes. Of course, anecdotal data is not too helpful in reaching firm conclusions, but it is good for formulating questions that can be more rigorously evaluated. As a counseling psychologist who follows a scientist-practitioner model, I wonder if anyone has adopted some of the clinical research paradigms to investigate which particular teaching/advising methods are most effective when used by this type of professor working with this type of student dealing with this type of problem in this type of situation. My hunch is that, similar to what we see in the clinical literature, there are certain common factors in effecitve teaching and advising which, if present, create an atmosphere in which learning is optimized, regardless of the particular style of teaching or advising that is used. Anyone know of any research in this area? I'll do a search on this topic when I get back to my office. In the meantime, I'm reminded of an old saying that may or may not be supported by hard data but seems to have relevance to this debate: For everyone complex problem, there is a simple solution, that is invariably wrong. Make it an empirical day, Rod __ Roderick D. Hetzel, Ph.D. Department of Psychology LeTourneau University Post Office Box 7001 2100 South Mobberly Avenue Longview, Texas 75607-7001 Office: Education Center 218 Phone:903-233-3893 Fax: 903-233-3851 Email:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Dirty Lessons
At 6:41 PM -0400 7/26/04, Louis_Schmier wrote: Mike, after you read this issue of CHANGE, which I offered for reflection, not accusation, you might read a host of other articles in the same publications, not to mention THE CHRONICLE. But, for starters pick up a copy of Ernst Boyer, REASSESSING THE PROFESSORATE. It's a reinforcement of the old WINGSPAN REPORT. Just for starters. The question remains: are there any systematic data behind these opinions. It's been a while since I read Wingspan, but as I recall it's rather soft. -- * PAUL K. BRANDON[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Psychology Dept Minnesota State University * * 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 * *http://www.mnsu.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html* --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Undergrad advising e-mail list?
TIPSters: I have just taken over the role of Undergrad Advisor here in our department. I'm wondering if anyone knows of an e-mail list (similar to TIPS) geared towards those faculty who do advising of undergraduates in Psychology programs. -Max Gwynn Maxwell Gwynn, PhD Undergraduate Advisor Department of Psychology Wilfrid Laurier University 75 University Avenue West Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5 Canada (519) 884-0710 ext 3854 [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
