Music Forum Sample Article

Implications from the REAP Report

Susan Wright

The instrumental claim that the arts can be used to buttress the 3Rs has become a favoured strategy for keeping the arts in the schools and for making sure that every child has access to arts education. Yet such reasoning is a double-edged sword. If the arts are given a role in schools solely because people believe they cause academic improvement, they could lose their position within the school curriculum - particularly if academic improvement does not result, or if the arts are shown to be less effective than the 3Rs in promoting literacy and numeracy. The arts should not be justified primarily in terms of what they can do for maths or reading or any other subject. Instead, the arts should be justified in terms of what they can teach that no other subject can teach.

The issue of the link between the arts and academic achievement was the focus of a large research study Reviewing Education and Arts Project (REAP), conducted by Winner and Hetland. The REAP project involved a comprehensive search of all studies from 1950-1999 (published and unpublished, and appearing in English) that have tested the claim that studying the arts leads to some form of academic improvement.

The full report was published as a special issue of the Journal of Aesthetic Education 34, (3/4) (Fall/Winter 2000). The Executive Summary of the REAP Report can be found in Hetland and Winner (2001). The REAP Report is also discussed in Arts Education Policy Review, 102(5) (May/June, 2001), on line (http://www.pz.harvard.edu), and elsewhere.

Briefly, the procedure of the REAP research was that, by using 188 reports (selected based on relevancy and the use of empirical testing), a set of 10 meta-analyses were conducted to examine the strength of the relationship between specific variables, such as music and reading. These meta-analyses combined and compared effect sizes across groups of studies that addressed similar research questions to determine whether the effect size can be generalized to new studies on the same research question.

Like most research emerging from Harvard's Project Zero, the REAP report has provided us with understanding of processes and processes of artistry and implications for arts education and advocacy. However, the REAP report also has created a great deal of controversy, and received some criticism. Four issues raised, for example, by Chapman (2001) are:

1. The report analysed only correlational and experimental studies, because the approach to meta-analysis requires data suitable for statistical measures of reliability;
2. The project was framed by an interest in cognitive, academic outcomes (eg. verbal and mathematical achievement, spatial-temporal and nonverbal reasoning, and creative thinking), excluding the analysis of issues such as artistic concepts, familiarity with history, or criteria for judgment,
3. Most of the analyses focused on the arts as performances - dancing, singing, playing an instrument, acting, dramatising stories, and doing an art project, and
4. The validity of some interventions as arts education was uncertain.

In spite of these limitations of the REAP study, in many ways, the results are positive for the field of music, and there is potential for improved arts research, educational practice and arts advocacy based on the results and recommendations from the report.

The Good News for Music

REAP found that, out of 10 areas analysed, three areas demonstrate clear causal links between the arts and achievements in a non-arts, academic area. Two of these three areas were related to music, and reliable causal links were found between:

• Listening to Music and Spatial-Temporal Reasoning
  Although the existing research does not reveal conclusively why listening to music affects spatial-temporal thinking, evidence for a causal link between these two dimensions is very positive. Hetland and Winner claim the finding has little importance for education, since improved spatial-temporal reasoning after listening to music is temporary, rather than long-term. However, scientifically, the finding is of interest because it suggests that music and spatial reasoning are related psychologically (ie. relying on some underlying skills) and perhaps neurologically (ie. relying on some of the same, or proximal, brain areas). Remarkably, there now seems to be clear evidence for a "Mozart Effect" (Hetland, 2000).
  
  
• Learning to Play Music and Spatial Reasoning
  The link between these two dimensions was greater when standard music notation was learned, but the causal link between learning to play music and spatial reasoning was found even when standard notation was not used. The value of this result, for education, is that the link between learning to play music and spatial reasoning applies equally to both general and at-risk populations, costs little to the school (since it is based on standard music curricula), and influences many students. However, spatial skills may or may not be of benefit for students, depending upon whether learning in subjects such as maths or geography, offers students chances to apply spatial abilities.

While the evidence for links between music and these two spatial dimensions is positive for music, some of the other findings of the REAP report have created some heated debate within the arts and arts education communities. This debate centres on the authors' caution that it would be dangerous to continue to justify arts education by secondary, non-arts effects, since 7 of the 10 areas analysed did not show clear causal links between the arts and achievements in a non-arts/academic area. Yet the reality is that the arts are the only school subjects that have been challenged to demonstrate transfer as a justification for their usefulness, for example, by demonstrating that the teaching of arts might improve abilities in maths. (For more information on transfer, see Smith, 2001).

The authors of the REAP report rightfully state that we must not require more of the arts -- as a justified area of the curriculum -- than would be required of any other subject (eg. maths, science). To do so puts the arts in a weakened and vulnerable position. Just as we do not justify the teaching of history for its power to transfer to maths, or the teaching of physical education for its power to transfer to science, we must not allow policy makers to justify (or reject) the arts based on their alleged power to transfer to academic subject matters. Nonetheless, the REAP authors state, it is notable that the arts can demonstrate any transfer at all. It is likely that the results of transfer between history and maths, for example, or between physical education and science, might not be better, and probably would be worse. So what is an alternative approach to justifying the arts in schools and our culture, other than using the common instrumental claim that the arts can be used to buttress the 3Rs?

Advocacy and Policy Implications

The problematic nature of conducting research in music, or the arts and humanities in general, is that they are domains that are not firmly structured to begin with and, consequently, there are many competing and conflicting views (Smith, 2001). The arts are "the very subjects where ambiguity, uncertainty, struggles of conscience, and independent thinking are as unavoidable as they are in life beyond schools" (Chapman, 2001, p. 23).

Justification for the arts, like justification for anything, is inextricably linked to values, and having a clear set of values makes the role of advocacy not only easier, but more effective. The fields of arts and arts education must be as clear as possible about the values of the arts that justify the teaching of the arts in the first place.

It is expected that there will continue to be many critical debates about the value of the arts, based on interpreting and applying the REAP data. Such debate will impact on the arts communities' ability to define and redefine the role of arts education in public schools. Confronting this challenge may provide a chance to reassess what it is we really advocate and why we do so. "Such reassessment should strengthen future advocacy efforts, and lead to the expanded infusion of the arts in education and in daily life" (Urice, 2001, p. 3).

The REAP authors suggest that the most important sorts of learning in the arts are those that help the young realise the inherent values of the arts. The values they recommend for advocating for quality arts education, which are cognisant with philosophical positions of many arts educators and arts advocates, include:

• The arts offer a way of thinking, knowing and understanding that is unavailable in other disciplines (eg. mastery of symbols and symbol systems that are every bit as difficult to achieve as the mastery of the symbols of language and science). This is a type of literacy that is slowly becoming acknowledged in the international community under the framework of 'multi-literacy' (Wright, in press). The arts are powerful because they offer qualities and techniques -- sensuous, formal, technical, symbolic, expressive -- that have consequences, "especially when they are skillfully deployed over time, in multiple contexts, and with some coherence in form, content and intent" (Chapman, 2001, p. 3),
• The arts provide powerful and special types of experiences (eg. joy, appreciation, engagement, flow, self-expression, communication), life-skills preparation for the 21st century workplace (discipline, collaboration, creativity, multiple 'literacies'), and opportunities to discern, interpret and critique aesthetic qualities (eg. medium, form, content, expression, style, meaning), and
• The arts are a fundamentally important part of culture. The arts are not ancillary either to society or to education - they are vital and essential for both. An education without the arts is an impoverished education leading to an impoverished society. The arts involve time-honoured ways of learning, knowing and expressing.

Identifying these and other values of the arts are important for framing agendas in many areas, particularly in arts research and arts advocacy. Most importantly, these agendas must emerge from theories and debates about potential research and advocacy directions that have controlling guidelines (Smith, 2001).

Theory-building to advocate for music education

One theory-based issue that could address the three values described above would be to conduct an analysis of what actually happens in schools when the arts are given a prominent role (Hetland & Winner, 2001). The music community could provide leadership in policy making in music education by carrying out ethnographic studies of exemplary schools that grant music a serious role in the curriculum. The focus of such a study could centre on the kinds of innovations that have been made in these schools to foster excellence -- to develop an understanding of the effects of the arts on school culture. As suggested in the REAP report, "If certain innovations are always found in schools that grant the arts a serious role, this finding could account for why schools with serious arts programs have high academic performance" (Hetland & Winner, 2001, p. 6).

Determining what is meant by an exemplary program, again, will be influenced by values, and finding clear definitions of quality will be a challenge. We have anecdotal evidence, for example, that schools with strong arts programs often report improved academic achievement. There could be a number of possible influences on why this might be the case, and some of these possibilities could be a starting place for an analysis of why schools with serious arts programs have high academic performance. One possibility could be that the same schools that treat the arts seriously institute other kinds of innovations that are favourable to academic learning (Hetland & Winner, 2001). These innovations might include, for example, inquiry-oriented, project-based approaches and the demand for high standards and processes that lead to excellence.

A second theory-based issue that could assist in advocacy of music education could be related to the REAP finding of the link between music (listening/playing) and forms of spatial reasoning. Although this result may have minor educational significance, it is of scientific importance (Hope, 2001). The finding has powerful implications for justifying music for its inherent power -- for its capacity to enhance underlying skills and use specific brain functions in ways not available through other subject areas.

REAP findings are likely to have a significant effect on the future of psychological research and promote thinking about future research programs. They point to possible relationships between arts study and brain/mind development that may be confirmed at a later time (Hope, 2001).

To me, one area of research that is highly relevant to brain development and could have strong implications for music education is the theory that musical behaviours have deep biological roots (Weinberger, 1998). The underpinning argument here is that musical behaviours are revealed early in life (eg. at prenatal, neonatal and infant stages), before cultural factors achieve a strong influence. It has been found, for example, that infants who receive systematic prenatal musical stimulation are more advanced in areas, such as attention and vocalization, than those whose musical stimulation comes later (LaFuente, Grifol, Segarra, Ssoriano, Gorba, Montesinos, 1997; Lamb & Gregory, 1993). Infants also have been found to be able to perceive and remember melodic contours (Trehub, Bull & Thorpe, 1984), and they mentally 'chunk' sequences of sound (Thorpe & Trehub, 1989). In addition, the structure of infants and preschool children's spontaneous song reveal a range of abilities to imitate, compose and perform music with complex structure (see eg. Davidson & Colley, 1987; Shuter-Dyson & Gabriel, 1981).

Professional artists and specialist arts teachers -- often the same people -- know from personal experience that in-depth study of an art form develops the mind (Hope, 2001). Research might throw light on the ways involvement with the arts stimulates certain parts of the brain, leading perhaps to the conclusion that the brain is less modular in its functions than previously believed (Smith, 2001).

Research findings that ultimately became dubbed the "Mozart Effect" (Rauscher, Shaw, & Ky, 1993) are associated with the belief that humans are born with certain brain cell groupings that respond to patterns, whether in numbers, musical notes or moves on a chessboard. These neurons fire in patterns that can be expanded as a sort of 'pre-language' to perform ever-more complex interactions -- even before the brain has developed verbal language skills (Leng & Shaw, 1991). Leng & Shaw proposed that this inherent repertoire of patterns is essentially present at birth, and perhaps a necessary condition for infants to understand music. In addition, they propose that there is an inherent structure in the brain that is devoted to music, similar to that proposed by Chomsky (1986) in relation to brain structure and language. Leng and Shaw state that this structure is accessible for use from birth, without any learning -- it is sort of a 'pre-language', which enhances spatial-temporal reasoning.

Science is at the surface of an infinitely complicated issue as it uncovers indicators about the nature of artistic intelligence and its connections with other kinds of intelligence, and the highly complex, physiological, psychological, and spiritual system that is involved (Hope, 2001). According to Hope, such scientific research is needed, not to justify art but, rather, to shed more light on why art justifies itself in the minds and hearts of people over time. Such substance, revealed and generated by both science and art, should elevate the role of arts education beyond that of increasing academic improvement in other areas of the curriculum. Research will assist theory building in the arts, and our capacity to advocate for the value of music in the school curriculum and within culture in general.

References

Albrecht, M.D. (1970). Art as an institution. The sociology of arts and literature: A reader. NY: Praeger.

Chapman, L. (2001). Can the arts win hearts and minds? Arts Education Policy Review, 102(5), 21-23.

Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of Language, its Nature, Origin and Use. New York: Praeger.

Davidson, L. & Colley, B. (1987). Children's rhythmic development from age 5 to 7: Performance, notation, and reading of rhythmic pattern, pp. 107-136. In J.C. Peery, I.W. Peery, & T.W. Draper (Eds.), Music and Child Development. New York: Springer and Verlag.

Hetland, L., and Winner, E. (2001). The Arts and Academic Achievement: What the Evidence Shows. Arts Education Policy Review, 102(5), 3-6.

Hetland, L. (2000). Listening to music enhances spatial-temporal reasoning: Evidence for the "Mozart Effect". Journal of Aesthetic Education, 34(34), 105-148. Hope, S. (2001). REAP: More than fifteen minutes. Arts Education Policy Review, 102(5), 7-9.

LaFuente, M.J., Grifol, R., Segarra, J., Soriano, J., Gorba, M.A., & Montesinos, A. (1997). Effects of the Firstart methods of prenatal stimulation on psychomotor development: The first six months. Pre- and Peri-Natal Psychology Journal, 11(3), 151-162.

Lamb, S.J., & Gregory, A.H. (1993). The relationship between music and reading in beginning readers. Educational Psychology, 13, 19-26.

Leng, Z., & Shaw, G. (1991). Toward a neural theory of higher brain function using music as a window. Concepts in Neuroscience, 2(2), 229-258.

Messaris, P. (1997). Visual persuasions: The role of images in advertising. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Rauscher, H., Shaw, G.L., & Ky, K.N. (1993). Music and spatial task performance. Nature, 365(6447), 611.

Shuter-Dyson, R., & Gabriel, C. (1981). The Psychology of Musical Ability (2nd Ed.). London: Methuen.

Smith, R.A. (2001). The Harvard REAP study: Inherent 'versus' instrumental values. Arts Education Policy Review, 102(5), 11-14.

Thorpe, L.A. & Trehub, S.E. (1989). Duration illusion and auditory grouping in infancy. Developmental Psychology, 25, 122-127.

Trehub, S.E., & Thorpe, L.A. (1989). Infants' perception of rhythm: Categorization of auditory sequences by temporal structure. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 43, 217-229.

Urice, J.K. (2001). Implications of the REAP report on advocacy. Arts Education Policy Review, 102(5), 15-19.

Weinberger, N.M. (1998). Brain, behavior, biology, and music: Some research findings and their implications for educational policy. Arts Education Policy Review, Jan/Feb, 1-11.

Wright, S. (in press). Drawing and storytelling as a means for understanding children's concepts of the future. Journal of Futures Studies.

Associate Professor Susan Wright works at the Centre for Applied Studies in Early Childhood, QUT, and is a member of the Music Council of Australia.