Does Music Effect How Efficiently Math Skills Are Performed?1

DOES MUSIC EFFECT HOW EFFICIENTLY MATH SKILLS ARE PERFORMED?1

Does Music Effect How Efficiently Math Skills Are Preformed?

Chelsea Arbour

University of Maine at Orono

Abstract

Classical music has been shown to “stimulate a person by relaxing the mind and when the mind is relaxed one can focus more and whatever they are trying to do will be easier.” You need to site this quote. In this study, it was hypothesized that students would do significantly better on the math test with classical music playing in the background. Twenty undergraduate students were surveyed. All of these participants were enrolled in Psychology 245: Research Methods in Psychology Section 3, at the University of Maine in the fall of 2010. The design used was a Repeated Measured Anova. Three random tests were found online and printed out for each participant. During the three different conditions (no music, classical music and rock music) the participants had four minutes to do as many problems as accurately as possible. Results of the repeated measures anova test showed no significant difference with any type of music F (1, 19) = 2.487, p = .097. In future research there should be a larger sample size to more accurately describe the data. There should also be random assignment to counter balance for orders of the conditions.

Does Music Effect How Efficiently Math Skills Are Performed?

Past research has shown that “there is much evidence that supports the positive effects of music on one's ability to do math.” You need in text citations! The Mozart effect is “a set of research results that indicate that listening to Mozart's music may induce a short-term improvement on the performance of certain kinds of mental tasks known as spatial-temporal reasoning.” In text citation! Those conducting this experiment also suggested that spatial-temporal reasoning is crucial in math. Other popular versions of the theory suggest that “listening to Mozart makes you smarter, or that early childhood exposure to classical music has a beneficial effect on mental development.”. This was founded by Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis, who wrote a book called Pourquoi Mozart? He used the music of Mozart “in his efforts to retrain the ear, and believe that listening to the music presented at differing frequencies helped the ear, and promoted healing and the development of the brain.”Cite Music targets one specific area of the brain to stimulate the use of spatial-temporal reasoning, which is useful in mathematical thinking. However, as to the question of whether or not music is the magical portion that will elevate anyone's ability to do math, the answer is yet unknown. (Zhan, 2008). Period comes after the citation, not before.

Research by Dr. Francis Raucher and Dr. Gordan L. Shaw of University of California Irvine found when children were “regularly exposed to classical music, they were better able to perform spatial tasks, such as learning concepts easily, problem solving, and accomplishing challenging activities. Music is comprised of beats, which add up to create sections similar to concepts found in mathematical equations. So, it adds up that music and math intertwine in ways that entice the brain to combine its creative and logical sides into one. The concept of spatial-temporal reasoning is the ability to visualize patterns, come to solutions, and understand multi-stop problems. Most often, these are concepts associated with math, but spatial-temporal reasoning is essential to our everyday life. When children are exposed to music, through either playing or listening, neurons in the brain fire, causing certain parts of the brain to engage, and even enlarge, in certain cases. The cortex, responsible for higher thought and development, is stimulated when a child plays or listens to music. The right brain is stimulated through expressing itself creatively by playing music, and the left is encouraged through making logical decisions while reading sheet music and playing the instrument. This means the brain works together, which as stated earlier, optimizes brain functions.” (Lipoff, 2010). Again, period comes after the quote…and yikes, this is a long quote, I would separate it out and put some of it in your own words or something!

Classical music has been shown to “stimulate a person by relaxing the mind and when the mind is relaxed one can focus more and whatever they are trying to do will be easier.” citeOnce relaxed, stressed is released; when stressed is released one will be less self conscious of their actions by making better decisions.” Light, classical music has been “indicated to have positive effects on mental clarity, which may lead to better homework performance. Music that is preferred or noisy may be a distraction to students, ultimately hindering their academic success”. (Hartjes, 2010). Period comes after. In this study, it was hypothesized that students would do significantly better on the math test with classical music playing in the background.

Participants

For this research study, twenty undergraduate students were surveyed. All of these participants were enrolled in Psychology 245: Research Methods in Psychology Section 3, at the University of Maine in the fall of 2010.

Research Design

The design used was a Repeated Measured Anova. Thus, being three separate math tests while the same student had no music, classical music and rock music.

Measures

The questionnaires used were found online by our teaching assistant; there were three different tests used for each participant. The math problems consisted of numerous two digit, two number multiplication problems. After all the tests were completed by each student, the teaching assistant read the answers aloud and the participants graded their own tests, marking plus one for a correct answer and minus one for an incorrect answer. In the end, for each test, the number wrong was subtracted from the number correct. These numbers were then places into an SPSS document by the teaching assistant.

Procedure

All participants were handed three sheets of paper, all with different math problems on the back that our teaching assistant found online. The math problems consisted of the multiplication of two, two digit numbers. Once the experimenter (the teaching assistant) said go, the participants all flipped their sheets over and worked on the problems for four minutes. There were three groups; no music (the control), classical music, and rock music. After all the experiments were completed, the experimenter read the results for the participants to grade their own problems. For every problem that was correct, it was plus one point, and for every incorrect answer it was minus one point. In the end, each participant subtracted the number wrong from the number correct, for each condition (no music, classical music and rock music).

Results

A repeated anova study was conducted to compare the math skills of students while listening to different types of music. Results indicate that the mean rating for no music was 9.85 (SD=4.79), for classical music, M=6.9 (SD=7.43), and for rock music, M=9.35 (SD=6.08). Results of the repeated measures anova test showed no significant difference with any type of music F (1, 19) = 2.487, p = .097.

Discussion

Due to the results, the hypothesis was not supported. The sample size was very small, only having twenty participants, which made the results quite bias, skewing the results and having very little external validity. In future research there should be a larger sample size to more accurately describe the data. There should also be random assignment to counter balance for orders of the conditions. This is repetitive, its used in the introduction. Since there were different orders for all of the participants, there may be limitations. Because of where the participants came from, there might be a problem with age and education differences as well. I would elaborate more on this discussion. What do the results mean? Interpret them. Discuss any errors that could have occurred and good experiments for future researchers.

Most of your errors were repetitive. You NEED to intext cite everything that isn’t your own thought and the period comes after the in text citation. And technically, you don’t have to quote in papers like this, that’s what the intext citation is for. Your spelling and grammer is good and the paper makes sense though, so good job!

References

Hartjes, E. (2010, April 23). Listening to music helps students be more productive in the classroom. Retrieved from

Lipoff, S. (2010, October 30). Learning music and math.Retrieved from

Zhan, C. (2008, January 16). The correlation between music and math: a neurobiology perspective. Retrieved from