Crossing classroom boundaries: school-based music participation and cross-domain learning development in adolescence

In education systems where curriculum time is limited and core academic subjects are strongly prioritized, a key question is whether music participation merely entails opportunity costs in instructional time or is also associated with learning and psychological resources that can be mobilized across disciplinary contexts.

This study examined whether school-based music participation is associated with domain-general learning engagement and adolescent learning development in a core academic subject; given mathematics' cognitive demands and salient evaluative and emotional processes, mathematics was selected as a representative domain.

Using the Korean PISA 2022 sample (N = 6,454; 5,914 with valid music-participation data), survey-weighted models incorporated replicate weights and mathematics plausible values and tested indirect and conditional pathways involving mathematics self-efficacy, anxiety, teacher support, disciplinary climate, and achievement.

More frequent school-based music participation was positively associated with all eight engagement indicators in the primary analyses (β = 0.034-0.083). Domain-general engagement was indirectly associated with mathematics achievement primarily through mathematics self-efficacy (B = 0.498, p < 0.001), whereas the overall mathematics-anxiety pathway was nonsignificant. Exploratory analyses suggested that MATHPERS may serve as a behavioral bridge. Teacher-support moderation was concentrated in mathematics anxiety, but neither classroom condition altered the overall cross-domain indirect association.

School-based music participation was associated with multidimensional resources relevant to adolescent learning development, supporting a resource-formation and domain-specific recontextualization account and suggesting that music education should be evaluated not only by direct achievement transfer but also by its broader contribution to learning resources across subjects.