Journal of Applied Psychology 1978, Vol. 63, No. 5, 644-645 Short Notes Does Transcendental Meditation Affect Grades? Carmen J. Carsello and James W. Creaser Student Counseling Service University of Illinois at Chicago Circle Seventy students who took a Transcendental Meditation (TM) Technique Initiation Training program were matched on the basis of sex, college, year, prior grades, and first letter of last name with students who had not undergone TM training. The TM group did not differ in grade point average from the control group for the quarter after training. The same was true for subgroups of 2 matched pairs two quarters after training. No effect upon grades was demonstrated for TM training. Three studies in a publication of the Maharishi International University Press, edited by Orme-Johnson, Domash, and Farrow (1976, pp. 393-395; 396-399; 400-402), reported beneficial effects of Transcendental Meditation (TM) on academic performance at both the high school and college levels. Each of these studies, however, either failed to isolate effects of TM form other concurrent activities or dealt only with those particular TM trainees who became "enthusiastic" about the practice. Domino (1977) failed to find standardized test support for a TM claim of increased creativity, and other than in the TM publications and pamphlets, no confirmation of improved grades could be found in the literature. Because TM is marketed on almost every university campus, there appeared to be a need for the present large-sample, well controlled study of what happens to the grades of the run-of-the-mill student who volunteers for TM training. Method Between 1973 and 1976, 380 persons completed the Transcendental Meditation Technique Initiation Training program at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. Of these, there were 70 who had grades there prior to TM training and for at least one quarter after training. Forty-two had grades for two quarters after training. These 70 comprised the experimental (TM) group. The remainder of the 380 either (a) had no prior grades, (b) had no subsequent grades, or (c) were not students at this university. The records of thousands of other students were examined to obtain a control group as nearly identical to the TM group as possible. Each member of the TM group was matched with a student in the control group on the basis of sex, college in which enrolled at time of training, year in college at the same calendar time period, prior grade (allowable deviation being plus or minus .2 grade points), and first letter of last name. With the execption of the last item, these are all factors that countless studies have shown to be related to grades. Unfortunately, it was not possible to control for age, which also ususally correlates with grades. In addition to prior grades almost identical with the TM partner, the control group member needed the same number of quarters of subsequent grades. Grades for the quarter during which TM training was taken were not considered in the study. Pre- and post-training grades were averaged for all groups. The TM groups were compared with the control groups by means of _t_ tests for correlated means. Grades for the 42 pairs of students in the subgroup were included in the total of 70 pairs for analysis of grades one quarter after training and were also evaluated separately to determine if a long-range benefit might appear. Results and Discussion Table 1 shows the matching of grades for the quarter prior to training resulted in almost identical averages for the TM and control groups and for both the large one-quarter sample and the smaller two-quarter sample. Therefore, no adjustment such as analysis of covariance was needed for the comparison of posttraining grades. For the 70 matched pairs of students, there was no significant difference one quarter after TM training in grade point average between the TM group and the control group. The same was true for grades two quarters after training for the subgroup of 42 pairs. Thus, no effect on grades was found for TM training. The present study as well as tohse mentioned earlier did not ask TM trainees whether good grades were among their goals for beginning the practice. However, grades appear an appropriate criteria because proponents of TM often imply that its influence enriches all aspects of life and it is also reasonable to infer that good grades are among the goals of any group of college students. Previous studies, showing a positive relationship between TM and grades, used selected samples, namely students who became enthusiastic about TM or those who had additional experiences in conjunction with TM training. Our students had no other known common experiences, and many of them never became enthusiastic about TM. They just represented the typical student who undergoes TM training. Therefore, our negative results do not contradict previous findings because different populations were studied. We would not dispute the claim that TM may help some students, but we must add, in agreement with Lazarus (1976), who said that certain personality types benefit from TM and other do not, that TM does not appear to be a universal cure-all for improving grades of all students. Table 1 _Comparison of Pretraining-Posttraining Grades for the Experimental (TM) Group and Control Group_ Experimental (TM) Control Grades M SD M SD Difference _t_ Students with first-quarter posttraining grades (n=70) Pretraining 3.89 .76 3.88 .76 .01 .30 Posttraining 3.68 .85 3.66 .86 .02 .16 Students with second-quarter posttraining grades (n=42) Pretraining 3.97 .67 3.96 .65 .01 .37 Posttraining 3.84 .89 3.79 .82 .05 .29 References Domino, G. Transcendental meditation and creativity: An empirical investigation. _Journal of Applied Psychology_, 1977, 62, 358-362. Lazarus, A. Psychiatric problems precipitated by transcendental meditation. _Psychological Reports_, 1976, 39, 601-602. Orme-Johnson, D., Domash, D., & Farrow, J. (Eds.), _Scientific research on transcendental meditation: Collected papers (Vol. 1.). Los Angeles: Maharishi International University Press, 1976. Received October 31, 1977 Copyright 1978 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.