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Does listening to music while studying improve test scores?

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We went to local high school and found 200 students to help with the experiment.

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We chose 200 hundred students. 50 from each grade level with an even amount of girls and boys all with ranging GPA’s within each grade level. With parent permission and consent we asked all subjects to come to the school on a Saturday for the experiment.

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There were five studying rooms. One with pop music playing, one with rap music, one with rock, one with classical, and one with no music. There were 40 students assigned to each room—again the students in each room would have ranging GPA’s and be from different grade levels with an even amount of girls and boys in each. The students then studied for a test (on a subject they may or may not have learned already) for one hour in a strict no-talking zone. After their hour was up, the music was turned off and they then took a test on the subject they studied for.

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The explanatory variable used was the type of music plying in each studying room.

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Our response variable was the score the students got on the test.

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There were definitely some variable that could’ve effected the experiment. For one, some students may have done better on the test purely because they already understood and had studied the subject before. Another variable could be that some students can study quicker than others anyway.

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The control group in this experiment was the students studying in a room without music. It gave us average test scores to base the rest of the data off of.

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While the students were aware of the music that was playing in their room, they Were not informed that there were other types of music playing in other rooms (students without music didn’t know there was music at all in other rooms). So there was no awareness that we were examining how the music would effect their studying.

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While we were mainly focused on making sure each room had an even amount of students from each grade level and gender all with ranging GPA’s, we tried as often as we could to find five students who had similar GPA’s from the same grade level and make sure each was put in a separate room.

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We chose 200 students to experiment on so the margin of error is 7%. This low margin of error is good and means the results should be accurate and have real-world application.

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In order to replicate this experiment we would have to have the same conditions and different students but the same amount/kinds of students (age, gender, GPA). These new students being split up the same way the other ones were into the same conditions would give us more accurate results. It would also double the amount of experimental units which would lower the margin of error.

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This experiment headed very interesting results. The students in the room with classical music playing had the most A scores. The most failing scores came from the students in the room with rap music playing with the room with no music following at a close second. Overall, there were more fails on the test in general.

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This study proves that students are usually not lying when they say music helps them focus. However, they usually wouldn’t pick the right music to “help them”. it seems music without words helps them focus less on the song playing and more on the task at hand. It still is more helpful than no music because it eliminates other distractions and possible roaming thoughts in their heads.

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The research team consists of only 15 members including myself. The school let us conduct the experiment in their classrooms free of charge. We payed nothing for the music used. The only money spent for material was on the prints for study guides and test sheets. That was around $20 for all of it. Along with that, I paid each team member $100 for helping with the experiment. Every students that participated got $20 for helping us get the results we needed. All of that added up was $5,420.

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After this experiment ended and the results were published in a scientific journal, the experiment began to be replicated. These results caught the attention of school boards across the country and even the world. Many composers found this as an opportunity to create music specifically for students in school to listen to and made millions off of students, teachers, and parents alike. Now many teachers even ply it in their classrooms when their students are working.