This study attempted to investigate and better clarify the relationship between instrumental music participation and academic achievement through the use of multiple regression analysis. The research question posed was: What is the nature and strength of the relationship between instrumental music participation and a student's academic performance, when controls for gender, SES and I.Q. are introduced?
Analyses suggested that instrumental music participation related significantly to explaining the variance in language arts scores when controls were entered for I.Q. SES and gender. I.Q. was determined to be the strongest contributor to all standardized scores. Further analyses suggested that instrumental music participation contributed significantly to the variance for both math and language arts scores when controlling for gender and SES. SES was found to have a significant impact on all test scores, whereas gender (male) only contributed significantly to one set of standardized math scores. Results from this study appear to suggest that instrumental music participation does have a positive relationship to a student's academic performance with the strongest association occurring in reading and/or language arts.
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