EFFECTS OF LISTENING TO MUSIC ON AT-RISK STUDENTS

The Effects of Listening to music on at-risk students in a Reading Classroom



Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION3

RESEARCH QUESTIONS4

RESEARCH PROBLEM STATEMENT4

SAMPLE DESCRIPTION4

PROPOSED METHODOLOGICAL DESIGN8

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS PROCEDURES9

Subjects10

RELEVANT IRB AND ETHICAL ISSUES10

The Effects of Listening to music on at-risk students in a Reading Classroom

Introduction

One important aspect that music can have on learning for people of all ages is attitude. It seems logical to assume that it is more helpful for adults who are less likely to want to do a particular job or activity, but music can change this and give a listener a more positive attitude and motivation. As we will see, by simply listening to pleasant music in the background while doing an arduous task can make it seem so much easier, or in some cases, music may not increase positive attitude, but will ease the strain of an activity(Robitaille O'Neal 2001).

A study was conducted by Shawn E. Mueske, a graduate at risk student at Mankato State University, to determine the effects of background music on a biology lab. He studied to determine the effects of background music on attitude, achievement, time spent in the laboratory and on task behavior. He used a control group which entailed one lab where no music was present, and one experimental group which listened to popular/soft rock music at an appropriate, soft sound level for background music. He found that there was no real difference in attitude or achievement among the two groups, but there was a significant increase in time spent in the laboratory and time spent on task

Research questions

The specific objectives of this research are:

discover when and how students listen to music in the classroom

discover what students prefer to listen to and how they see that music affecting their learning

discover students' perceptions about the physical, emotional, and achievement-related effects of music listening in the classroom

discover what policies, if any, students feel should be applied to music listening in the classroom.

Research problem statement

The purpose of this research was to investigate how at-risk students perceive music listening to affect their reading comprehension in school.

Sample description

There have been numerous studies conducted to test whether different types of music have an effect on cognitive performance, such as reading comprehension, memory, and arithmetic. Research by Sinatra (2006)showed that soft, "lullaby-like" music can in fact improve cognitive ability and that more upbeat music can decrease cognitive ability. One hundred & eighteen elementary students were given four tasks to complete entailing reading comprehension, free recall, mental arithmetic, and verbal reasoning. Students performed better while listening to the soft music rather than the more upbeat music, therefore suggesting that students perform better on tasks while listening to calm, relaxing music, like classical music with more of a slow tempo.

A possible explanation for these findings is that calming music relaxed the participants and helped to calm their nerves. The calm, relaxing music was not as much of a distracter as the upbeat music nor did it necessarily ...