The purpose of this experiment was to test the effect of classical music versus hard rock as well as volume level, high and low, to see if this made an impact on memory recall from a reading passage. Participants included psychology 101 students raging in age from seventeen years of age to twenty-four years of age, three of which were males and fourteen were female. Experiment was a two-by-two, between group deign. Independent levels were type of music and volume. The levels of each were classical vs. hard rock and high vs. low, respectively. Students were instructed to read an essay while background music was being played. A test of reading comprehension followed and students were ranked on their performance and categorized by the independent variable and level of said independent variable. The dependent variable was the percentage scored correct on the reading comprehension exam.
Reading Comprehension and Auditory Intake
There are many students who regularly listen to music during a study session. Some prefer loud rock music; others prefer a soft, slow melodious classical rhythm. The question is: Which type of music is more conducive to successful reading comprehension?
The Mozart effect has been studied multiple times to mostly the same end (Cassity 2007) (Hiu 2006). The original study determined that college students who listened to a Mozart piano sonata had grater ability on spatial-temporal reasoning. This particular Mozart piece of music is a slow melodious classical song. Therefore it could be related that Mozart has an overall positive reasoning affect. That is, students who listen to slow, soft classical music should be successful at reading comprehension and then be successful at answering a test of that reading passage to measure their comprehension of said reading.
It is believed that students randomly assigned to listen to loud hard rock music should not do as well because it is believed that this type and volume of music would be more distracting to the students than the soft slow classical music and therefore the students would not be able to concentrate on the reading material and as such would not do well on the reading comprehension examination (Beentjes 2000).
Many students would change his or her study habits to do better on a test. The reason to test study habits and auditory intake is to the effect that they may help students retain more information and be more successful at studying any information that they may be tested on in the future.
There are two levels of the independent variable and they are the volume and type of music: Loud and Soft, classical music and heavy metal. The following groups are the independent variable groups that the participants may be assigned: Loud – Classical Music, Soft – Classical music, Loud – Heavy Metal music, and Soft Heavy Metal music. The dependent variable is how well the listeners do on a reading comprehension passage. The students taking the test are all in psychology 101 and participating in research for class credit.
Students are instructed to read a one to two page passage and given a standard amount of time to do so. The reading passages are about boring literature. During the reading of that passage they are subjected to listen to either soft slow classical music or loud heavy metal music. After completion of the reading passage they are asked to take a test on what they have just read. Questions are multiple choice of five possible answers and scored by the percentage of correct answers.
It is predicted that the students who are listening to the soft and slow classical music will do better on a test of reading comprehension than students who are listening to loud heavy metal while reading the passage. The other two groups; students who listen to loud classical and soft hard rock music should roughly do the same as both may be confusing to the listener. It is also believed that soothing auditory intake would be more conducive to reading comprehension and problem solving tasks than auditory intake that was unpleasing or disruptive.
It is expected that the students who listen to the soft slow classical music will do better on the stock reading comprehension test because they will be more focused on the task at hand; reading and more importantly understanding the passage(Lahiri 2007). Students assigned to the group of loud rock music are expected to perform the worst due to the confusion that the volume and music type convey.
Participants. Participants in the study were gathered by a convenience sampling via a approved signup sheet posted in the hallway of the psychology department in the Cambell Hall on the campus of The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Participants consisted of psychology 101 students seeking credit for their classes as well as students willing to participate in the study by solicitation. Fourteen females and three males participated in the study. The mean average for females was 20.43 and the mean average for males was 21.33. Eleven identified themselves as white, three identified as African American, and three identified as other. Design. A two-way, between-subjects design was used. As such there were two independent variables and they were music type and volume. There were two levels of each independent variable and they were classical music (Joseph Hyden) and hard rock (Nile) and volume level; high and low. The dependant variable was memory recall recorded by the observance of the percentage scored correctly on an exam of reading comprehension. The reading excerpts were from the standardized achievement tests (SATs). Materials. Materials gathered were three reading passages with corresponding questions of standardized achievement tests. Each exam consisted of twelve questions. Data files containing songs by Hyden as well as Nile were played on a computer with corresponding speakers. Forms indicating informed consent were provided as well as debriefing sheets and credit slips. A stopwatch was used for the purpose of keeping exact time when allowing the participants to read the passages as well as take the tests. Procedure. Informed consent was slowly read to the participants and each participant signed a copy stating that they understood their rights as participants of the study. Participants were notified that they would be given five minutes to read each reading passage and five additional minutes to answer each set of questions that followed the reading excerpts. The first of three tests were distributed and each participant was given five minutes to read it. Music played as the group indicated that it was alright to begin reading. The four possible conditions that participants could have been assigned to were low volume classical music, high volume classical music, low volume rock music, and finally high volume rock music. Every participant was assigned to only one condition. Each participant then read the second excerpt and took the exam as well as the third excerpt and third exam. Participants were then debriefed. After participants were observed in every condition a score as a percentage of correct answers was obtained for each exam of each participant. Each condition was in one of two classrooms similar in size, location, and aesthetic.
A analysis of variance, ANOVA, was used to analyze effect of music genre on memory recall. Results revealed a significant main effect for genre, F(1,13)=15.358, MSe = 1061.674, p < 0.05. ANOVA was also used to analyze the effect volume on memory recall, F(1,13) = 20.982, MSe = 1450.340, p < 0.05. Participant that listened to classical music (M = 61.00) did significantly better than those listening to heave rock music (M = 41.29). Participants who listened to music at a low volume (M = 63.56) did significantly better than participants who listened to music at a high volume (M = 40.88). Between volumes within the classical music group there was a significant difference in volume F(1,8) = 16.261, MSe = 1450.417, p < 0.05. Participants that listened to classical music at a low volume (M = 70.83) did significantly better than participants who listened to classical music at a high volume (M = 46.25). Between volumes within the rock music group there was a significant difference in participants who listened at a low volume (M = 49.00) and those who listened to heavy rock at a high volume (35.50), F(1,5) = 8.444, MSe = 312.429, p , 0.05.
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