General description on research questions Students of all ages often devote themselves to massive multitasking while studying: instant-messaging, checking email, sending SMSs, and listening to music. Music exposure influence has been well documented (Boal-Palheiros & Hargreaves, 2001; Fox & Embrey, 1972; Smith, 1961). Specifically, Major mode (e.g. Fool’s Garden Lemon Tree) is usually associated with achievement and happiness. Minor mode (e.g. Tokio Hotel’s On the Edge), linked to failure and sadness, is heavily proposed by music industry and almost universally liked by teenagers nowadays. In Italy, there is a general concern about good standards in mathematics: in PISA 2006 (N = 57 countries, overall mean trend = 484), Italian students achieved an average mathematics score of 462, the lowest assessment score of G-7 countries (OECD, 2006). In line with my studies about media literacy (Barone & Olivieri, 2006; Olivieri & Barone, 2007), this study takes place in reference to math results and teenagers’ claims that they can study and learn more effectively while listening to music. Aim of this research is to explore the effects of two background music listening conditions (sad-minor vs. happy-major mode) and one no-music condition (normal classroom setting) on a complex cognitive test battery that respects key-contents of the math discipline structure (at the epistemological level) in a homogeneous group of Scientific High School students (N = 50, mean age = 16.29, std. dev. = ,694). Since the terms “major” and “minor” mode may cover a wide range of stylistic variability, this study uses specific musical examples taken from international pop music charts. Theoretical framework Thoman and Jolls (2005) define Media Literacy as “a 21st century approach to education. It provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms – from print to video to the Internet”. Media education can be considered as the ongoing process that allows students to achieve media literacy and become multi-alphabetical citizens (Margiotta, 2006). Pioneering Canadian media educator Worsnop (1994) states that “Media literacy is the expected outcome from work in either media education or media study. The more you learn about or through the media, the more media literacy you have”.

The students completed a questionnaire about math grades, music listening habits, and personal attitude towards mathematics (a list of 12 adjectives) first, then they were exposed to three background conditions –Major and Minor music, and No-music while completing parallel forms of a cognitive battery (with correlations ranging from r = .69 to r = .67 for α = .01) that included: 1) a Math test, analogue to PISA 2006 assessment of mathematical literacy; 2) GEFT (Witkin et al., 1971); 3) SPM (Raven, Court & Raven, 1996); 4) Critical Thinking (Boncori, 1989). Tests 2, 3 and 4 imply problem solving and spatial ability (Hetland, 2000; Rauscher, 1993). Total score gives a report of reasoning proficiency, while the first component of the battery gives a strictly mathematical proficiency score. The examinees had 45 minutes for each repeated test battery administration. Music played during each test session, except for the control session.

All math grades obtained better results in Major mode, average scores with No-music, and below average scores in Minor mode condition (F = 33.49, p-value = <.0001), confirmed significant at p <.05 by post-hoc analysis. Single tests analysis confirmed this tendency, except Math component returned significantly better performance for Minor mode (F = 5.67, p-value = .02). Searching for explanatory variables, Math scores were regressed on adjectives that better described math attitude – complicated, boring, sad, annoying, constructive, and fundamental – explaining 34% of data variability (F = 3.01, p = .02). “Sad” variable contributed most to this result (β = .59). Students appeared tuned on the emotion produced by the Minor mode. A possible explanation is based on communicating vases principle: Sad music triggered emotional consonance with math attitude, while happy music determined worse math scores through emotional dissonance. Emotion and cognition are two faces of the same coin.