Arts and Cognitive Development: What Does the Research Say?

Does an arts-rich education make a difference?

Based on their review of research on art education and its effects on academic performance, Lois Hetland and Ellen Winner warn against sweeping claims of causal links between learning in the arts and achievement in other academic areas. They found only three instances of causal links between learning in the arts and improved learning in nonarts areas. Here are some excerpts from the executive summary of their report on Project Zero's REAP (Reviewing Education and the Arts Project):

"a medium-sized causal relationship was found between listening to music and temporary improvement in spatial-temporal reasoning . . . .

a large causal relationship was found between learning to make music and spatial-temporal reasoning. The effect was greater when standard music notation was learned as well, but even without notation the effect was large. . . .

a causal link was found between classroom drama (enacting texts) and a variety of verbal areas."

Spatial-temporal reasoning is important in geometry and some areas of calculus. Based on what I've read, listening to and playing music activates the same neural circuitry that is used in problems that require spatial-temporal reasoning. So the effect may come come more from the effects of music on brain development than from a transfer of thinking skills or knowledge.

Hetland and Winner's analysis indicates that we do not yet have definitive research establishing a broad causal connection between learning in the arts and improved academic performance in math and science, literacy, and creative thinking skills. But it's not surprising that so little is known. Federal and state investments in such research and local investments in the kind of high-quality arts education that would provide the conditions for collecting valid and reliable data have been much smaller than investments in math and reading. In other words, scientific evidence is scarce largely because few are looking for it.

Some studies, however, suggest strong correlations between arts learning and positive outcomes. Here are a couple examples from Critical Evidence: How the ARTS Benefit Student Achievement, published by National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and the Arts Education Partnership:

In an experimental research study of high school age students, those who studied dance scored higher than nondancers on measures of creative thinking, especially in the categories of fluency, originality and abstract thought.

A group of 162 children, ages 9 and 10, were trained to look closely at works of art and reason about what they saw. The results showed that children’s ability to draw inferences about artwork transferred to their reasoning about images in science. In both cases, the critical skill is that of looking closely and reasoning about what is seen.

Both examples come from Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development, an Arts Education Partnership research compendium that contains summaries of many such studies. Also, a 2005 Arts Education Partnership book called Third Space: When Learning Matters details the experiences of ten arts-rich public schools in economically disadvantaged communities with achievement test results that are significantly better than those of schools from the same communities.

The difficulty is this: A school's success in creating an outstanding arts education program may be an indication of other exceptional assets, such as committed parents and community partners or outstanding leadership and an innovative faculty. This is certainly true with many schools for the arts, whether they audition students or select them from a lottery. More kids with strong support networks—involved parents or mentors—go through the process of applying.

Still, isn't it a reasonable hypothesis that the arts played some role in the higher academic performance and other positive behaviors typically found in arts rich schools? And shouldn't clear effects on brain development be a rationale for more research on the benefits of arts education? Isn't that what innovation is all about—pursuing promising paths that lie outside the mainstream of what works?