Students' Perceptions about Using Background Music in Music Lessons

This paper determines students' perceptions about the use of background music in music lessons while performing written tasks. The aim of the study is to demonstrate the perceptions of the students in grades 2-3 about the impact of background music on their well-being while performing written tasks and the quality of their performance in the music lesson. Previous studies on the impact of background music on learning outcomes and behaviours have been analysed, and an empirical study has been conducted to achieve the aim of this study. The empirical study involved 78 primary school students (N= 78) in grades 2-3. The study was carried out at X comprehensive school between September and November 2019. To determine the students' perceptions about the impact of background music on well-being and the quality of performance, each student had to complete a written task while playing background music. After completing the task, each student was asked to fulfil self-assessment questionnaire. The study found that the majority of students have a positive attitude towards background music. However, it was also found that the background music creates a very bad mood for some students, which in turn negatively affects their well-being. Background music can help students to feel more comfortable during performing a written task if the music can calm them down and/or stimulate them to work. The study shows that students evaluated the fact that background music can help them performing written task qualitatively was at an average level. Students believe that background music can help them complete the task successfully, if it affects their mood positively, promotes concentration and stimulates them to work. It is also found that some students had a very positive attitude towards background music, and in contrasts, some students had a very negative attitude towards it. Although one student likes background music very much, it could be very disturbing for another one at the same time. This study identified a variety of views, which is to a large extent based on the individual characteristics of each student.