Listening to background music has been shown time and again to benefit students in the classroom. Listening to as well as studying music a fair amount myself, I have experienced firsthand the benefits of listening to music in a personal setting. Studies have shown a well-selected playlist of music played at a volume that is considered not distracting can facilitate improved classroom performance and behavior in students. The mental and physical benefits of listening to music have also been shown to extend beyond the classroom. Utilizing music in the classroom is one example of an classroom technique that can be used by teachers to help students get in an engaged learning state that helps them focus and retain information, among other things. However, teachers in elementary, middle, and high schools across the country are increasingly being told to teach a specific way according to a certain set of standards that allows for little input from the teacher. In some cases, like in Seattle, Washington, teachers are assessed according to standardized "measures of academy progress", a method which experts say is unreliable. A poor fit between the design of the course and the teacher's teaching style can also result. 

Studies involving the medical applications of music therapy have shown music to have an effect on biological indicators. According to Professor Susan Hallam, " Calming background music has been shown to have a direct impact on biological indicators of stress such as cortisol  (e.g. Flaten et al. 2006) and blood pressure (e.g. Triller et al. 2006), in addition to perceived anxiety (Pelletier 2004)"  (Hallam, 2005). Classical music has been found to lower heart stress, reduce cortisol levels, and to positively affect the neural and immune systems in ways that are not wholly understood (Kemper & Danhauer, 2005). One obvious key to the success of background music in a classroom is a well-selected playlist of music that will facilitate better student performance and behavior, while not drawing attention away from students. An article in the journal Educational Studies discusses the implications of studies regarding types of music in the classroom and their results on student task performance, saying, "The studies described above demonstrate that, where the type of background music played can be clearly deemed by a group of listeners as calming and pleasant or arousing and unpleasant, it can have distinctive effects on task performance and the reporting of intended altruistic behavior. Calming relaxing music had a positive effect on the number of mathematics problems completed, remembering words from sentences and on reported pro-social behaviour in children aged 10 -- 12 years. Music perceived as arousing, unpleasant and aggressive had a negative affect on performance on a memory task and also led to a lower level of reported pro-social behavior." (Hallam, Price, & Katsarou, 2002) My plan for implementing background music in the classroom will take research into account when determining the playlist of music that will be used in the classroom. Research has suggest easy listening music, especially classical, is best in terms of beneficial effects in the classroom. Chris Brewer, MA, has extensively researched the relationship between learning and music. He writes in his research compilation, "Research from music therapy suggests that music can "reset" negative attitudes to positive moods, even for people in depression (Thayer et al, 1994). Music therapists Michael Thaut and Shannon de l'Etoile researched the use of music to induce a positive mood. They played the first movement of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A, Opus 107 to 50 students and found the music produced a positive state in 85% of the students (Thaut, 1993)" (Brewer, 2009). One may ask, how is mood associated with classroom performance and behavior? Chris Brewer cites research, saying, "Researchers have established the benefits of positive attitudes for learning success, especially memory and recall (Ashby, Isen, and Turken, 1999; Smith. 2001). Students with depression or negative attitudes engage less in classroom activities, are less efficient at learning, and generally recall less information (Ellis et al, 1997)." One reason teachers at the University would be reluctant to use background music in their classrooms is because they would assume this music would be distracting to students and result in less on task behavior. However, numerous studies have shown that an appropriate music selection played at a generally low volume can actually result in just the opposite. One such study found an observed 2/3 reduction of off task behavior over a nine-week period with the implementation of background music in a classroom (N. Schofield, 2003). The results of another study indicate that both music and non music majors in college both had higher selective attention  --  intentional, focused attention  --  test scores when listening to music as compared to not listening during test taking and these results indicate it may have been facilitative in their performance (Darrow, A.-A., Johnson, C., Agnew, S., Fuller, E. R., & Uchisaka, 2006). A doctorate dissertation authored by Stephanie Haynes found that performing a mathematical task in the classroom does not seem to be negatively affected by the presence of background music in a prior study session. This is supported by her findings that achievement on a math examination was not distinctly different when music or silence was played in a pre examination study session (Haynes, 2003). 

Haynes' study also found that background music played during a pre-exam study session will reduce the level of mathematics test anxiety both prior and after the examination. Students exposed to background music during a study period before taking a math exam had less pre and post-exam anxiety (Haynes, 2003). These results aren't very surprising; music therapy implemented in modern medicine is taking advantage of the relaxing affects of music. According to an article in the Southern Medical Journal, "music can improve mood and reduce anxiety in surgical patients. In a study of effects of listening to music on preoperative anxiety in men undergoing prostate surgery, participants in a music intervention had significantly reduced anxiety and blood pressure... In a study of 20 women awaiting breast biopsy, the group that received 20 minutes of music had less anxiety than usual care patients" (Kemper & Danhauer, 2005).  

In addition, an article in the Journal of Educational Research investigated the affects of easy-listening background music on the on-task performance of fifth grade students over a four month period. The study conducted by the researchers obtained results which, "indicated that the use of easy listening background music was effective in increasing the on task performance of students... it would seem that providing easy-listening background music in the classroom would be a plausible, yet inexpensive technique for increasing the amount of time in which students are actively engaged in learning." (Davidson & Powell, 1986) The article initially cited previous research regarding the benefits of on-task behavior in students, saying, "other studies have found evidence of an association between time on task and student achievement (Denham & Lieberman, 1980; Karweit, 1984; Stallings, 1980)" (Davidson & Powell, 1986). 

The Center for Psychoacoustic Research published findings on the Sound Health Music for Concentration and Learning CD's they developed, containing, "psychoacoustically-refined classical and baroque music performed by the Arcanglos Chamber Ensemble." The results of surveyed teacher responses of 27 classrooms that implemented the CD's found that, "100% of the teachers reported they enjoyed the experience of playing this music in their classroom. An average of 70.5% reported their students were more on task, 68% reported their classrooms were less noisy, 48.5% reported their students were more attentive, and 50.5% reported their students were more productive when listening" (Advanced Brain Technologies, 1998). 

Improved learning and retention of information learned in the classroom are additional tangible benefits shown in studies to be a result of the implementation of background music in the classroom. Frederick Herrmann of McKendree University cites research on the effects of background music in an educational setting, saying, "Numerous studies have shown the benefits of background music in classroom study and test situations. A case study of 39 1st graders found that studying with background classical music resulted in greater retention of letter sounds and names than studying without it (Lewis, 2002). A Dutch study of 36 individuals demonstrated improved learning of foreign languages with background music (deGroot, 2006). A study using 126 American sophomore high school students demonstrated improved vocabulary and grammar learning with background music (Wolff, 1969). A study of elementary students from three Chicago suburbs showed improvement in spelling word retention with background music (Anderson, Henke, McLaughlin, Ripp, & Tuffs, 2000)" (Herrmann, 2009). 

In conclusion, background easy listening music has been shown to have beneficial affects both inside and outside of the classroom. However, teachers are not allowed to use alternative techniques in the classroom like this because of restrictions limiting the way they teach the class according to standards. Teachers are also pressured to have their students perform because they will be evaluated based on their students' standardized assessment results.
