Study Habits and Music: How They Affect
Attention and Academic Performance
APPROACHES TO STUDYING
Studying for tests and exams is an activity
which is integral to any college student’s
academic success. Students often review class
material prior to taking an exam to ensure that
they are knowledgeable on the key concepts
and ideas. Though the need to study is nearly
universal, the exact study habits and methods
utilized by students span a broad range of
techniques. Past research has described several
of these study habits Marton & Säljö, 1984; Hay
2007). However, the ultimate success of any
one technique over another may not entirely be
dictated by the material to be studied and the
personal study habits of the student. Study
settings may differ greatly in terms of the
external stimuli present in the surrounding
environment. Some of these stimuli, such as
music, may be chosen by the student,
depending on his/her personal study
preferences. Students regularly listen to music
while studying as a way to help them stay
engaged in studying (Beentjes, Koolstra, & van
der Voort, 1996). Although many students view
listening to music as helpful, it is unclear
whether listening to music actually helps
students sustain their attention while studying.
In fact, under some circumstances, listening to
music may actually be a distraction. The
purpose of this study is to examine how the
students’ study habits combine with whether or
not they are listening to self-selected music to
predict sustained attention and performance on
academic tasks. 2 An initial investigation of the
past literature on how music affects cognitive
performance, particularly in academic facets,
will first be explored. The use of selfselected
music specifically and any potential benefits of
listening to such will also be examined. In order
to consider how self-selected music may be
used in various study scenarios, a breakdown of
the study habits continuum will be provided.
The role which attention may play while
studying, in combination with listening to
music, will be reviewed as well.
The Effects of Music on Student Psychology
While many would agree that music affects us,
details of the effects of music on intellectual,
psychological, physiological, social, and physical
processes of humans are not common
knowledge. Recent studies have shown that the
use of music can enhance or detract from the
completion of many tasks, including eating,
sleeping, exercising, driving, reading, writing,
math, and social interaction. It can also affect
mood and our abilities to behave, remain on
task, and focus. Adolescents naturally seem to
use music to monitor and manipulate mood,
motivation, and task completion, but
understanding the effects of music could enable
them to make appropriate decisions concerning
musical choices. It is vital to understand how
music is beneficial and avoid the use of music
for situations in which it may be distracting.
Also important are the effects of music we do
not choose, but are subjected to through our
environment choices such as restaurants and
stores. Research in these areas has shown that
certain elements of music, especially tempo and
loudness, have significant effects on tasks in
various areas. This article provides practical,
research-based information that will assist the
reader in meeting K-4 national standard 9c.
How music could help you to concentrate
while studying
It’s fair to to say the majority of students prefer
to study while listening to music. Whether
frantically cramming some last-minute reading
to Kanye, or finalising an essay to the sound of
the Arctic Monkeys, go to any university or
college library and the majority of students
there will be listening to their music of choice.
Music is a very significant part of our daily lives;
the image of the quietly-focused student
isolating themselves into a personal study zone
has led to interest into whether listening to
music actually helps studies or not. Research
into the field has proven fairly ambiguous,
with many studies contradicting each other.
However this does provide an useful insight for
students who maybe looking into ways to use
music to enhance their exam performance.
The most famous theory linking music and
cognitive performance is the ‘Mozart effect’,
the popular idea that listening to Mozart makes
you smarter. The research itself was interested
in the relation between Mozart and ‘spatial-
temporal reasoning’, or knowing how to fit
things into other things, basically. The idea that
music - particularly classical - can improve
exam results has endured, with websites such
mozarteffect.com selling music supposedly
designed to “charge the brain.”
However, research has shown that performance
in tasks involving memory and concentration
was better in a silent environment, though,
studying in place often disturbed by talkers,
sneezers, or traffic, few students have access to
a silent study space. Subjects tested in
environments with background music were
found to get better results than those tested
against background noise. Therefore, taking
along an iPod and a set of headphones may
come in handy if you’re looking to avoid being
distracted by any ambient sounds.
The style, volume, rhythm and ‘state’ of the
music a student listens to, as well as the
personality of the student, can also be
significant factors. Classical music is generally
viewed as the best to listen to whilst studying,
however there is no decisive research to back
this. What has been proven is that listening to
music which is constant in state, has a steady a
repetitive pulse, and is not too loud is better for
concentration than inconsistent musical styles,
meaning you should probably avoid listening to
anything labelled ‘Mathcore’ when trying to be
productive. The same study also found evidence
that people perform worse when listening to
their preferred, rather than neutral, music.
Personality has also been shown to affect
performance, with introverts more likely to test
worse than extroverts. Similarly, people tested
who are bad at multi-tasking have also been
shown to test worse when listening to
background music. For those who feel the
pressure during exams, it has
been observed that calming music, for example
a Haydn string quartet, can help to reduce
anxiety in an individual.
This highlights the main thing to consider when
listening to music while studying: that how you
do so really just depends on you. There is no
decisive doctrine or absolute piece of research
which tells you what to do, whether it’s a Four
Tet Boiler Room set or Cannibal Corpse you
think helps you to study, do what you believe
helps. Listening to music has been shown to
cause the release of dopamine, meaning that it
is a pleasurable, rewarding experience which
can relax an individual.
On the whole, what a student can take from
research is that using music to create an
environment yourself is conducive towards the
task you wish to complete.
Studying for finals? Let classical music help
Works by Bach, Brahms, Mozart
 and others
are effective aids that improve sleep patterns
and reduce stress, studies find
As the season of cramming and finals
approaches, Trojans can get help with a
healthy, easily accessible study aid — classical
music.
It’s a solution available 24/7 at Classical

KUSC in Los Angeles or Classical KDFC in San
Francisco. Listen either on the radio or live-
streamed at kusc.org or kdfc.com. There’s a
new version of KUSC’s free app and one
for KDFC to use on mobile devices.
A number of academic studies recently zeroed
in on classical music, showing that 
listening
benefits the brain, sleep patterns, the immune
system and stress levels — all helpful when 
 classical music can help soothe insomnia. A
facing those all-important end-of-semester
tests.
Face the music
University research in France, published
in Learning and Individual Differences, found
that 
students who listened to a one-hour
lecture where classical music was played in the
background 
scored significantly higher in a
quiz on the lecture when compared to a similar
group of students who 
heard the lecture with
no music.
The researchers speculated that the music put
students in a heightened emotional state,
making
 them more receptive to information.
The researchers speculated that the music put
students in a heightened emotional state,
making
 them more receptive to information.
“It is possible that music, provoking a change in
the learning
 environment, influenced the
students’ motivation to remain focused during
the lecture, which led to 
better performance
on the multiple-choice quiz,” they wrote.
According to research from the Duke Cancer
Institute, classical music can also lessen anxiety.
Researchers gave headphones playing Bach
concertos to men undergoing a stressful biopsy

and discovered they had no spike in diastolic
blood pressure
 during the procedure and
reported significantly less pain.
But make sure you are listening to classical
music, because not all music aids blood
pressure, a
 University of San Diego study
found.
Scientists at the university compared changes in
blood pressure among 
individuals listening to
classical, jazz or pop music. Those listening to
classical had significantly 
lower systolic blood
pressure when compared to those listening to
other musical genres or no music at all.


Just relax
Classical music helps you relax even when you
don’t pay attention to the music, a Russian
study 
published in Human Physiology found.
Children who listened to classical music for one
hour a day 
over a six-month period exhibited
brain changes that indicated greater levels of
relaxation — even 
when the children were not
asked to pay attention to the music.
If testing anxiety causes sleepless nights,
team of 
researchers at the University of
Toronto found that tuning into classical music
before bedtime helped
 people fall asleep
faster and stay asleep longer. Works by Brahms,
Handel, Mozart, Strauss and Bach
 were
effective sleep aids because they use rhythms
and tonal patterns that create a meditative
mood 
and slow brainwaves, the study found.
(KUSC and KDFC make it easy to access quality
classical music all
 night, every night.
The California Classical All Night program airs
on both stations from midnight to 5 a.m., seven

days a week.)
Cut out the cannons
So what selections do classical music experts
favor for listeners trying to absorb new
information?
KUSC host and producer Alan Chapman
suggested pieces that are more restrained to
provide a nice 
aura in the background. Skip
over large orchestral pieces, particularly those
with a dynamic that 
ranges from whispers to
booming cannons.
“The 1812 Overture would not be a good study
aid, unless
 you were studying to be a
demolitions expert,” he observed — a
sentiment echoed by KDFC host and assistant
program director Rik Malone.
Chapman suggested choosing solo piano pieces,
perhaps Mozart sonatas or French piano music
by Poulenc,
 Debussy or Fauré. Mozart string
quartets are also good choices, he said, for the
regularity of phrase 
structure in classic period
pieces.
Guitar music is gentle enough to study by, as is
lute music, which has enjoyable, dulcet tones.
Sample 
Bach lute suites, Chapman suggested.
Elizabethan consort music from the late 16th
century, played on viols, was intended to create
a 
pleasant atmosphere at court without
demanding attention, Chapman said, and is
another good 
candidate for music to study by.
So before turning to the books, turn on Classical
KUSC or Classical KDFC.
 Lee, S. (2011, March 23). The Effects of Music
on Student Psychology. Retrieved from
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED519172.pdf
 Widerman, M. S. (2013, April 29). Study Habits
and Music: How They Affect Attention and
Academic Performance. Retrieved from
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1e4b/bf8798f
c24ebb35c9a0e0367d2917750c903.pdf
 Rauscher, F. H., Shaw, G. L., & Levine,, L. J.
(1994, August). Music and Spatial
TaskPerformance: A CausalRelationship.
Retrievedfrom
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED390733.pdf