First Name:
Bradley
Last Name:
Beamon
Major Department:
Music Education
Thesis Director:
Lisa Runner
Date of Thesis:
May 2014
Purpose: This study attempts to expand upon the work by Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw, and Katherine Ky. Their study, published in 1993, determined that college students who had been exposed to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K.448 demonstrated an increase in test scores when immediately given a spatial-reasoning task. The general public became excited at the idea of music making their children smarter, and the infamous "Mozart Effect" was born. No subsequent research study has been able to prove the same results. Method: Sixty-four students from Cannon Music Camp at Appalachian State University participated in this July 2013 study. Participants were divided into six groups. Five groups listened to different genres of music for ten minutes before completing a spatial reasoning test. The sixth group heard no music of any kind before completing the spatial reasoning test. Result: Results were analyzed using IBM's SPSS software. There was no evidence that listening to any particular genre of music increased test scores across a group. Significant differences were found between prospective majors in one section of the test, and males outperformed females in two sections.