Welcome

…to the LongGold project.

The LongGold project is a longitudinal research study investigating the development of musical abilities across the teenage years. We aim to understand what role music plays in the development of secondary school students. The project documents how musical skills are related to cognitive abilities, attitudes, personality, psycho-social skills, and academic performance. We also aim to answer tricky causal questions on whether musical activity is a cause or a consequence of positive development in other areas, such as memory or general intelligence (i.e. ‘does music make us smarter or does our smartness allow us to make music?’).

Understanding the relationship between music and other areas of development will help us to support children and adolescents in their development much better in the future.
The project is currently supported by a research prize awarded by the Humboldt Foundation. The LongGold study follows pupils from secondary schools in the UK and Germany over several years, documenting each year how their musical abilities, cognitive, attitudes and self-concepts, personality, and psycho-social skills have developed.