Question:
Over the years teachers have told me that classical music is known to help students focus more while doing work. I have always done homework in complete silence or while watching TV. I wanted to see which one would help you the most while doing work. Is complete silence the best way to do your work? Let's find out!
Hypothesis:
My hypothesis is that Classical Music is going to be the one that helps you focus more. I think this because I have heard my music teacher tell us that Classical Music helps you get better grades and focus more. Whenever I have done my homework in complete silence I have always been bored and ended up procrastinating, so I do not think silence is the best way to do your work. Watching TV while doing homework helps me get it done but it takes longer for me to do it. Therefore, I think that Classical Music is going to win.
Procedure:
Get 4 Boys and 4 Girls from the same grade. (7th Grade)
Have them do 140 basic multiplication problems while sitting in complete silence, watching TV, and listening to Classical music.
Time them for 5 minutes and see how many they can complete and then check their work.
Collect data and see which thing helped them the most
Put data in graphs.
During this project I learned that Classical Music helps you focus on your work more and get better grades. My data did relate to my question of “Is Peace and Quiet the Best way to do your Work?” The answer was no because I discovered that Classical Music was the best way.
I think my answer that I got is accurate because I had a good amount of volunteers and they were the same grade level. I have heard from most of my teachers that listening to classical music helps you focus more and I now found out that they were right. I tested everyone with the same variables and the same amount of time for each person.
There are several ways I could improve on my experiment. To improve this experiment I could have used different grade levels and more variable to test with. I also
could have used more volunteers so I could test more and get an even more accurate answer. Using more complicated problems could have helped since they
were easy problems. All in all listening to Classical music is the best choice for focusing on school work.
Abstract:
Is Peace and Quiet really the Best Way to Do Your Homework?
This project is testing if silence is the the only thing that helps you focus while doing your schoolwork. I had 7th graders do 143 basic multiplication facts in complete silence, while watching TV, and listening to classical music. While they did these I would time them for 5 minutes and then grade each paper for each thing they did it with. My hypothesis was that the classical music would help the most. I chose this topic because I have heard so much about how classical music is supposed to help you while doing work and improve your grades.
When doing this project I used 4 boys and 4 girls who were all in 7th grade. I then printed up 3 pages of 143 basic multiplication facts for each person. I then made all of them each sit in front of the TV while I timed them for 5 minutes, I did this same step for the other 2 things also. After each volunteer did these steps I then graded their papers. I knew which thing helped that person the most, because I based it on how many they got correct on each paper while doing each one.
When collecting my data I used 8 volunteers, 4 boys and 4 girls. I tested them with 143 basic math multiplication problems. While doing these I gave them 5 minutes to complete the page but they had to do something while working. They had to sit in silence, watch TV, and listen to classical music. I am testing to see which variable helps more when working. 3 out of the 4 girls had a better score while listening to Classical Music, while 1 had a perfect score on each one. All 4 of the boys scores were better while listening to classical music also. Leaving Classical Music as the winner. All in all, I learned that Classical Music helps most while working.
While doing this project I learned more about how different people work and what helps them focus more. My hypothesis is correct, because classical music ended up being the variable that helped the students while working the most. I think while testing I could have put harder math problems and used more volunteers. I think my project ended up being accurate because I have read several articles about how classical music is supposed to help while working. I think I could have improved on this experiment by getting more volunteers. In my opinion I think my project turned out to be very accurate.
Conclusion: