MuSciQ- A Musical Curriculum for Math

Abstract

Music and math are related in that 1) they both rely on the basic understanding of numbers, proportions, intervals, measurements, and operations and 2) both require levels of abstract thinking and symbolic notation. Studies link music and math by examining, for example, how music may play a role in math performance. There are, however, few studies that examine how a musical curriculum may impact not only math performance, but math related variables including math anxiety, math self-efficacy, and math motivation. This study sought to develop and assess the feasibility of MuSciQ, a music technology-based curriculum, and explore how it might impact math anxiety, math selfefficacy, math motivation, and math performance in twelve fourth-grade students. Additionally, acceptability of the MuSciQ curriculum was assessed by students, a teacher, and a school administrator by using the Technology Acceptance Model. Participants experienced large, significant improvements in math anxiety scores and significant improvement in math motivation. Math performance and self-efficacy showed small, non-significant improvements. When split by gender, only math anxiety scores showed statistically significant improvement in males. As expected, there was a significant positive correlation between motivation and self-efficacy before and after the curriculum was introduced. There was also a significant positive correlation between technology acceptance and motivation. Surprisingly, although there were significant positive correlations between the pre- anxiety and motivation measures, there were no significant correlations after the curriculum was introduced. There were no significant correlations found between anxiety and technology acceptance. There was, however, a significant correlation between technology acceptance and self-efficacy. Technology acceptance and additional qualitative comments provided by students and administrators suggest MuSciQ is an easy and useful platform to promote music and math learning. These findings point to a need for further investigation into the influence of MuSciQ on math related variables.