THE RESEARCH
Asking students to sit for consecutive hours a day is no longer working for education . Students struggle to keep their minds focused and find themselves daydreaming instead of being engaged by learning . Public school education struggles with class size , poverty , family factors , technology , bullying , attitudes and behaviors like apathy , tardiness and disrespect , leaving administrators and educators seeking solutions . While the problem is complex , and the solutions will continuously come in different shapes and forms , movement has been receiving a lot of attention for helping children ’ s emotional , social , physical , commutative and cognitive development .
THE RESEARCH
Research out of Finland linked music-induced movement to the Big Five Personality traits ( Luck , Saarikallio , Thompson , Toiviainen , 2010 ). The Big Five Personality Traits - also known as the five factor model ( FFM ) - are broken down as :
• Extraversion ( excitability , sociability , talkativeness , assertiveness , emotionally expressive )
• Openness to experience ( imagination , insight , broad range of interests )
• Conscientiousness ( thoughtfulness , good impulse control , goal-directed behavior )
• Agreeableness ( trust , altruism , kindness , affection )
• Neuroticism ( Emotional instability , anxiety , moodiness , irritability , sadness )
Several independent sets of researchers have studied these five personality traits ( Fiske , 1949 ; Norman , 1967 ; Smith , 1967 ; Golberg , 1981 ; McCrae & Costa , 1987 ). The researchers found that after studying 50 different cultures , personalities could be accurately described by these five personality traits . Since the traits are dimensions , each personality can vary in each one of the traits .
In the most recent study , researchers had 952 people complete the Big Five Inventory . Of those 952 participants , 60 extreme scorers were presented with 30 excerpts of music from 6 popular genres of music . Those 60 participants were recorded by an
STEAMed Magazine
27
January 2016 Edition