At 5:42 PM -1000 10/5/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>From what I could tell from what I've read about this:
(1) The sample size was not terribly large (20 in the non-musician
group, 20 in the musician group). Understandable, as they have to
pay their subjects, but still makes it only a preliminary type of
study.
Small, yes, but not invalid. What it does is to make it very
difficult to derive valid statistical results from the experimental
data. That's why I'd like to read the actual report, so see what
kind of validity they claim. Even public opinion polls usually use
1250 subjects, although lately I've seen most of the political polls
using only 625.
(2) It was a correlation study, not causation.
(3) They were more than likely college students. :-)
But aren't all studies extrapolated from college Sophomores?!!!
(4) The groups were matched for like demographics and indicators,
such as age/sex/SAT score.
That's an awfully narrow range of matching factors, plus which the
subjects were basically self-selected. (They're the ones who needed
the money the most!)
(5) Not sure what they meant by higher IQ scores. IQ scores as a
whole have been a very controversial topic, to say the least.
Excellent point. I'm not sure we ever had a report on "IQ scores" on
any of our 4 kids. Percentiles, yes, LOTS of those, but the only way
we know they're smart (although in very different ways) is that
they've demonstrated it!!! There may indeed be such a thing as "IQ,"
but it's the tests themselves that have been shown to be culturally
biased.
(6) There were some subjective findings that were interesting, but
probably not worth much ("musicians has a greater diversity of
answers in the creativity tests.").
One thing I'd like to discover is whether there were any musicians on
the team that designed the experiment. Trained, experienced,
performing musicians, not just amateurs or "interested" in music.
Generally in these studies there are not, and generally those who do
design the studies make assumptions and gross generalizations based
on their extensive (lack of) musical knowledge and experience!
In spite of all that, I found the article on study interesting (no I
have not read the original paper, it's not yet published). Why? I
generally have felt that teaching the three R's but ignoring the
arts as many schools are doing because of budget cuts is a false
economy. As Mr Holland said, if you take away music and the arts,
soon there won't be anything worth reading or writing about.
I think it was the Carnegie Study in the late '60s, when my parents
were still teaching, that stated, "The schools should concentrate on
the basics. The arts are basic."
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
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