How do we experience music? Vocational students to explore this at a festival
Many of us love music, but we don’t understand why exactly that is – or how our individual experiences of music can differ. Rebecca Schaefer will research this in the run-up to the SNAAR Festival in Utrecht. And in a unique way: students in vocational education (mbo) will be the researchers.
Research shows that the vast majority of people enjoy music. ‘But how exactly does that work? And what about the differences between music genres and how individuals experience them? This is what we want to explore in the run-up to, and possibly during, the SNAAR Festival in Tivoli, Utrecht’, Schaefer explains.
By ‘we’, Schaefer means 100 mbo students who will join the project as citizen scientists. The students will formulate their own research questions and will conduct the research themselves.
‘This will give them deeper insight into the effects of music, including how it affects them personally’, says Schaefer. ‘They’ll also gain first-hand experience of how scientific research is conducted, which we hope will positively impact their perception of scientific research.’
So the project is both a citizen science initiative and a science communication effort, which is why Schaefer and the Leiden Citizen Science Lab were awarded a NWA Science Communication grant from the 2025 call.
Calming or energising
In the run-up to the April 2026 festival, Schaefer will work with the students to develop more specific research questions and design the study. They will also start collecting data. ‘We could develop an app, for example, where people can share what music they hear in public spaces and how they feel about it’, she explains. ‘There could also be questions about how young people use music to regulate their emotions, like to soothe themselves to sleep or boost their energy before a night out. I’m sure the students will be able to come up with plenty of interesting questions.’
Stress
To recruit students for the project, Schaefer contacted Leren met de Stad. MBO Rijnland has been a full partner since last year, and the collaboration has already proven fruitful, programme manager Marieke van Haaren explains. ‘A great example is the new LDE minor in Co-creating a Healthy Society. Students from the LDE universities worked together with mbo students to co-create a real intervention aimed at reducing stress among mbo students. And the good thing is that the Knowledge Center for Anxiety and Stress in Youth has adopted the intervention and will develop it further as part of its efforts to reduce stress in young people.’
Spark
Schaefer and Van Haaren are eager to see what the new project will bring. ‘For me, citizen science is a new way of doing research, so I’m excited and a little apprehensive. And, of course, my scientist’s heart is curious about what kind of research we’ll be conducting, and whether it will lead to some exciting new findings.’
Van Haaren has every confidence in the collaboration. ‘I hope the project will also spark an interest in science among the students. What’s also important is that we know from the research I mentioned on stress that one reason mbo students experience stress is the feeling that others look down on them. We really need to move away from that kind of thinking in levels. Projects like this show that mbo students can take on an equal role, and that scientific research can be fun, and far from boring or elitist.’