>From the _New Scientist_ e-mail newsletter:
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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."
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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
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