Hello everyone.!!
Welcome again to my blog. So today this is the last post in my blog. The title is Effect Music on Reading Comprehension, it’s a part of Result and Discussion. Let’s start it!
Discussion.!
In the present study, reading comprehension tests were administered to fifty third level
students in five different musical environments. The results of the study did not support the assumption that there was a difference in reading comprehension test scores among third level students using different musical environments (no music, jazz music, classical music, lyrical jazz music and lyrical classical music) as distracters. The reading comprehension scores did not decline significantly when participants were listening to music compared with participants in a quiet setting. Therefore the first hypotheses, there will be a significant difference in reading test scores between the participants in a non-music environment and those in a music environment, was not supported.
Although the study did not support this assumption, existing research has found inconclusive results on the topic of music interfering with study habits of students. Anderson & Fuller’s (2010) study, to examine the effects of lyrical music on learning in 334 adolescents, found that studying while listening to music detracts from the reading performance of adolescents. However the current study did not support these findings. Although many previous studiesindicate music as having a detrimental effect on cognitive ability, other studies have had positive effect. Schellenberg, (2005) found evidence showing that music listening and learning enhances cognitive function, while Beemtjes et al (1996) found that students’ performance decreased on learning assignments in the presence of background music and media.
As the music used for this study was not deliberately chosen to reflect popular genres among the participants, i.e. music the students would listen to independently, further research could investigate whether a more popular genre of music would have an effect of the reading comprehension test scores of the participants. The use of a meaningful reading comprehension test may have a significant result compared to a meaningless reading comprehension. As the reading comprehension was not a meaningful text, future research could investigate if a meaningful text, such as student health information, would produce a more significant result. As the study only focuses on reading comprehension test scores, further investigation could look at the effects of music on other tasks such as problem solving. Research by Wolfe (1983) examined the effects of loudness of background music while completing maths problems and questionnaires and found that participants completing the task with background music at a volume of 80 – 90dB, perceived the loudness to be distracting. Therefore, future investigation of the level of volume by which the music was played should be taken into account. Finally, the time period for which the study was completed should be taken into consideration for further investigation, to find what effects, if any, music has on reading comprehension over longer or shorter time spans.
Result!
In conclusion, the association between music and intellectual performance among third level students is a topic which is in need of further investigation. This study focuses specifically on reading comprehension test scores, therefore other studies could focus on study tasks whereby students listen to music more frequently while undergoing such as thinking, developing ideas and written tasks. Each of these tasks involves different cognitive processes, which may have an impact on the effect which music can have on these particular types of learning. Although there was no significant difference in test scores, trends among the group results suggest that the addition of lyrics to music will increase the complexity of the music, which may have cause further detrimental effects on cognitive processes involved in completing a reading comprehension test. A number of other factors need to be taken into consideration in order to get a full understanding of what aspects, i.e. tempo, lyrics or structure, within music will cause further detrimental effects on the study tasks of students.
So. that’s all the Result and Discussion in the last of this post. See you in the next post. byee !!!
English Education 