PROJECT N°41
Effects of music on student’s concentration levels
Catarina Bernardino, Maria Toscano Rico, Jasmin Parmar
European School Frankfurt am Main
Praunheimer Weg 126, 60439 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
S6 EN
Abstract
The main aim of this study was to test how various genres of music would affect student’s
concentration levels. The experiment was conducted on 142 students of a variety of ages, from the
youngest year to the oldest year in the secondary level of the European school Frankfurt (11 to 18
years old). The subjects were given a time limit of 2 minutes to memorise a list of 20 words with
different background music. After this time they had 1 minute to write them down. The results
obtained varied among the music genres and grades but overall it is clear that there are significant
differences among them. Music types such as rap and pop worsened the performance of the subjects,
whereas mediation and heavy metal did surprisingly well. The data obtained were statistically
analysed with the Chi-square test of independence, giving p-values over 0.05, which means that we
cannot reject the hypothesis that the studied variables are independent, and the differences observed
can be due to chance. Further statistical analyses of the results, however, showed that age played a
huge role in terms of memorization capabilities, giving p-values for the Chi-square test of 0.0178 and
0.03886.
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1. Introduction
Studying is the most important and one of the hardest aspects of a student’s academic life. With all
the pressure put on students many feel the need to listen to music, in order to relieve some of the
tension and stress they face while studying. However, some disagree and prefer not to. According to
North et al., (2000), in the adolescent years music becomes increasingly important with most teenagers
listening to music for approximately three hours a day. Furthermore, music has developed drastically
over the last few decades and with more and more genres coming to light such as pop and rap, pupils
nowadays have become more interested and familiarized themselves with most forms of modern
music. After personally reading numerous articles and studies (Hallam et al., 2002; Kotsopoulou and
Hallam, 2010; Salamé et al., 2007; Davidson et al., 2015) our group was determined to find out firsthand to what extent this applied to modern society. The way we tested student’s concentration levels
was also considered. After viewing articles such as Harp (1988) and Douglas et al. (1994), which
experimented with reading, ones like Karnowski (1986) and Koppelman (1995) who utilized writing,
and others as Hallam et al. (2002), which applied mathematics; our group decided to follow the
procedure chosen by Morton et al. (1990) : memorization.
The main question we sought to answer was: How do different types of music effect student’s
concentration levels? However, through the course of this experiment we also developed several other
questions such as: Does age play a key role in students’ capacity to memorize? Are certain learning
techniques better than others when it comes to memorisation? And, Are shorter words more easily
remembered? Our main hypothesis stated that when listening to meditation music, students would be
more concentrated than when hearing more aggressive genres such as rap and heavy metal which
were predicted to generate poorer performances. We also deducted that the older the student the
better scores they would achieve. Furthermore, as this experiment is a visual task, our group theorised
that visual learners would perform better in relation to other types of learners. Lastly, we hypothesised
that the shorter the word, the more likely the subject was to memorise it.
2. Methodology
To carry out this experiment we chose five different music genres, which were: pop, heavy metal,
meditation music, rap and a song in a foreign language. We searched online for songs that were not
widely recognized in order to keep this variable constant. In addition to this, we included a recent and
well known song to test if popularity affected the concentration levels. We conducted this experiment
on 142 pupils from S1 to S7 (11-18 years old) so we could also consider if age played a role in the
student's performance.
2
We arranged for the students to memorise a set of twenty words and made sure that they had an
evenly distributed number of letters in order to control the variable. The list consisted of: three words
each containing three letters, another three words each containing four letters and so on until we
reached eight letter words, and then included an additional nine and ten lettered word. The words
themselves were carefully chosen so that none of them correlated with each other. To accomplish this,
we used a random word website generator (20 random words generator) that helped us formulate the
lists.
Students were given a time limit of two minutes to memorise as many words as they could from the
list, which was projected on the Smart board. After which they had one minute to write down all the
words they remembered on blank sheets of paper that we provided. Once the time was up, we allowed
them to check their results and also asked our participants to write down how many words out of
twenty they got right (ignoring spelling mistakes), and their year. We began with the negative control
(no music) and then proceeded to test the genres. For this, we set a constant volume of 70 decibels.
By genre
The mixed selection of music styles was purposely chosen to thoroughly test the subjects and truly
stretch their memorisation capabilities. This was decided as many pupils, when asked, admitted to
listening to at least two different genres of music regularly and so our group wanted to learn to what
extent this applied to the majority and the rest of their peers.
Furthermore, the huge collection of data led to an increase in the number of theories developed, and
also contributed to the discovery of several other hypothesis.
The wide variety of music styles also allowed flexibility in terms of result analysis. This came to a vast
advantage as it ensured more reliable findings which are further looked into in the results.
No Music
As mentioned previously, we first tested the negative control on the students. This was done in order
to see how they would perform with no music, so we could then compare these results with the ones
found when the subjects were exposed to music. The negative control set the bar to a certain standard
that we expected to increase or decrease according to the music type.
3
Figure 1 displays the list of words used to test the negative control:
Figure 1: list used for first negative control
4
After testing various music types, we decided to perform another negative control on the subjects to
see how the results might have changed as the students were becoming more familiar with the
process.
Figure 2 shows the set of words used to test the second negative control:
Figure 2: list used for second negative control
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Pop Music
Our group then decided to test pop music. We purposely selected the song “Fool For You” by Big Z ft.
Jackson Breit that none of the subjects had heard before. This was done so that we could see if not
knowing the combination of the beat and the lyrics previously would have an impact on one’s
concentration level.
Figure 3 is an illustration of the set of words used to test for the pop music:
Figure 3: list used for pop music
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Heavy Metal
The next genre that was used to test the pupil’s attention levels was heavy metal. The song, “You Only
Live Once” by Suicide Silence was chosen on the same principals as the previous one.
The subsequent list of words (Figure 4) was used to test for this genre:
Figure 4: list used for heavy metal
7
Meditation Music
Meditation music was next on the list. Our group specifically used one that included a piano melody
as we had read studies (Dosseville et al., 2012) which stated that such melodies helped one’s learning.
The series of words used is shown in Figure 5 below:
Figure 5: list used for meditation music
8
Rap
As rap has evolved to become one of the most popular genres among teenagers we felt it necessary
to test it out. “4.A.M Bay Bridge” by Andre Nickatina was the song we decided on to fit the “unknown
song” criteria.
The following set of words (Figure 6) was applied:
Figure 6: list used for rap music
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Popular Music
After testing a series of unknown songs, our group wanted to see the outcome of using a famous one
and if previously knowing the beat and lyrics would have any affect. Thus, we decided to go with
“Sorry” by Justin Bieber, which was number one on the top charts for two weeks straight as well as an
addition 40 weeks on the charts in general according to officialcharts.com (Accessed: January 2017)
Here is the list we provided (Figure 7):
Figure 7: list used for popular music
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Foreign language
Whilst all the songs tested were in English or merely instrumental, we were curious to see how a
foreign language song would affect the students. Since our school is so multi-cultural we had to be
cautious with the song choice as the pupils come from all over Europe and are therefore accustomed
to a wider range of western music. For this reason we settled with a Chinese song “Zui xuan min zu
feng" by Phonix Legend.
The list below (Figure 8) is the one complied for this genre:
Figure 8: list used for foreign language
The graphical and statistical analyses were performed with Microsoft Excel (2013).
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3. Overall results
Our experiment was conducted with a certain number of students (142) in the secondary European
school of Frankfurt. The youngest year (S1) consisted of 17 students, the second youngest year (S2)
had 20 students in them while the S3 year group had 19 students. Following that, the next year (S4)
had the highest number of pupils, a total of 32 while the S5’s had the lowest amount with only 13. The
S6 year had 21 in their class and finally the S7 class had 17, the second lowest number of students.
The results obtained varied among the music genres and grades but overall it was clear that there were
significant differences among them. Music types such as rap and pop worsened the performance of
the subjects whereas mediation and heavy metal did surprisingly well. After testing 142 students with
a negative control to begin with, which resulted in a total average of 12.062 words, the averages of
other styles of music fell into place. The average of rap came to 10.899 words, and the average of pop
came to 11.831 words. Meanwhile the average of meditation fell at 11.946 and that of heavy metal
was 12.267.
Graphical analyses
Graph 1.
Comparing final averages among the music genres
Average number of memorized words
13,5
13
No music
12,5
Unknown Pop
12
Heavy Metal
Meditation
11,5
Rap
Known song
11
Foreign language
10,5
10
Music genre
12
Graph 1 represents the mean of all year averages of the music genres. After thoroughly calculating this
to three significant figures, the negative control came to 12.921 memorized words – the highest result
overall. This high figure is due to the second negative control that was performed among the various
year groups. After testing the subjects with an initial negative control, which had a mean of 12.247,
the students began achieving results that generally grew better and seemed to improve. On that note
we decided to test another negative control and as expected the results were higher than the first with
the average coming to 13.595. Hence, the combined score of both reached first place. In second place,
shortly following the negative control value, is heavy metal. To our surprise, this music genre scored a
figure of 12.346. Meanwhile meditation although expected to score higher than heavy metal, came at
third place earning a total average of 12.269. The lowest music genre was rap that achieved a value of
10.991. Following closely, is the well-known pop song. This also scored quite low and resulted in a
value of 11.593. So overall, after viewing these results, heavy metal to our surprise came out as one of
the best music genres while rap as expected remained the worst music genre.
Graph 2.
Average number of memorized words
Comparing no music per grade
16
14
S1
12
S2
10
S3
8
S4
6
S5
4
S6
2
0
S7
Class year
Graph 2 illustrates the results of the first negative control test among the various year groups. Our
group purposely created this bar chart to illustrate that age played a vital role in memorization.
Looking at the graph there is an overall steady increase of the averages, overlooking minor
discrepancies. The youngest year, aged 11 to 12, came out with the poorest results, with an average
of 10.58 words out of twenty. The next year (aged 12-13) did somewhat better, coming out with an
average of 11.05. The big leap in the graph is visibly seen between years S4-S5 (13-15), where the
difference was 1.266 words. Another big gap is seen between S6 and S7 (16-18) where the difference
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came to 1.824. These results lead us to suggest that the older the subject is the bigger the difference
solely one year makes in the capacity of memorising.
Graph 3.
Comparing Both Negative Controls Per Grade
Average number of memorized words
18
16
14
12
10
No music 1
8
No music 2
6
4
2
0
S1
S2
S3
S4
S5
S6
S7
After noticing that the students were achieving better results the more times they performed the task,
our group decided to test if this was in fact true. To assess this, we conducted a second negative
control. Looking at the graph above, one can identify a clear pattern of improvement between the first
and the second time the pupils were asked to memorise the set of words without music being played.
We believe this happened because the subjects developed techniques to help them memorise more
words, more efficiently and quicker. There is an evident rise in results, as older years performed
generally better in both negative controls, which links back to the age factor mentioned previously.
The biggest gap in averages calculated, is among the S5 students with ages ranging between 14 and 15
years old. The gap difference is of 2.769 words. On the other hand, the lowest recorded difference of
results was by the S3 with a difference of only 0.575 words. To conclude, as seen in these results it is
observable that the second negative control produced much higher results than the first.
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Graph 4.
Comparing Rap and Heavy Metal per Grade
Average number of memorized words
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
S1
S2
S3
Rap
S4
S5
S6
S7
Heavy Metal
The following graph represents the difference in averages between rap and heavy metal, two unique
genres, which are somewhat similar in certain aspects; however also contain different elements to
them. This accounts for the staggering differences that are visible above. In all grades, heavy metal has
exceeded its expectations, which were rather low. In the S3 category while the average of rap was
rather low (9.05 words), heavy metal did far better and resulted in an average of 12. Similarly, the year
S5 received alike results with rap reaching 10.615 and heavy metal doing better with 12.846. Older
groups followed this pattern too, as seen by the oldest year the S7’s. Although they did significantly
well in both heavy metal came to 15.8 words, one of the highest results recorded during this
experiment.
Through the course of the experiment, as heavy metal results improved unexpectedly we came up
with another hypothesis, which stated that subjects exposed to language interpretations through both
visual and perceptible auditory senses would do worse than those who were not. This meant, that
songs which had clear lyrics and therefore were easy to hear and comprehend would distract students
more easily than those songs with undistinguishable lyrics and unclear meanings.
These results reinforce this idea as it is evident that heavy metal is a genre in whose lyrics are
challenging to make out. Our group believes this led to an increase in results as pupils were unable to
connect and identify with it. Rap on the other hand is a popular music genre among youngsters and so
we felt that students were accustomed to it and could easily understand the lyrics and message of the
song. All in all, heavy metal excelled whereas rap produced some relatively low results.
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Graph 5.
Average number of memorized words
Comparing Unknown Pop and Foreign Languange
among the years
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
S1
S2
S3
Foreign Languange
S4
S5
S6
S7
Unknown pop
Graph 5 shows the comparison between the foreign language and unknown pop music. As our school
has an array of cultures and nationalities from all over Europe, we decided to choose a song from Asia,
a continent that the students were not so familiar with. Therefore, the foreign language chosen was
mandarin, the world’s most spoken language.
We thought that the unknown pop would create a bigger distraction to the students as they were more
familiarised with such songs in comparison to ones in a foreign language. However, looking at this
graph, we see they obtained quite different results. It is evident that the pupils were in actual fact
more distracted by the foreign language song. We believe this is due to the difference in style, lyrics
and melody of the song. Pupils exposed to such unaccustomed pieces of music had trouble processing
the unique and unidentifiable lyrics. While memorizing English list of words, this additional action
perhaps caused a diversion in attention among the class and therefore contributed to the lower
average scores they received. On the other hand, unknown pop music had a recognisable beat and
melody that the majority were used to. The students could easily connect to the song as the lyrics were
in English, which meant the task required less brain processing. Therefore, their performance was
worse than when their attention was split. This however did not work for the last year (the S7’s) who
had their results reversed, meaning that the foreign language did better than the unknown pop. This
surprising change could be due to the time of day the experiment was conducted. The S7 class, the
foreign language test was done earlier during the day where the pupil’s minds were fresh and awake.
The other test was done in the afternoon after much of their brainpower was consumed which could’ve
played a crucial role in their sudden change however in most cases the foreign language tended to
worse than the unknown pop.
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Graph 6.
Comparing Meditation and Well known Pop
among the years
Average number of memorized words
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
S1
S2
S3
S4
Meidtation
Known Pop
S5
S6
S7
The above graph illustrates the comparisons of meditation and well-known pop song instead of an
unknown-pop song. While in the previous graph meditation performed worse than the unknown pop
song, this time the results of meditation seem better than those of well-known pop music. This
difference is relatively big between all years. In S2 meditation reached an average of 10.05 while the
pop music did poorly in contrast and scored 7.578 words only. The S4’s had similar results where
meditation came to 12.533 and pop yet again did worse with an average of 11.473. The S6 also had a
big difference as meditation achieved 13.647 whereas pop had 11.29 words. This is probably due to
the familiarised lyrics and beat within the pop song. These aspects make it easier for the subjects to
engage with and therefore distract and disrupt their focus. This is not possible with meditation as there
is no lyrics, solely melody that is calm and reassuring. So, all in all, it is clearly visible that while
meditation isn’t best in comparison with an unknown pop song, it definitely procured higher results
than the known pop song.
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Graph 7.
Comparing Meditation and Heavy Metal per Grade
Average number of memorized words
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
S1
S2
S3
Meditation
S4
S5
S6
S7
Heavy Metal
Graph 7 shows the comparison between the performance of different years in memorising words
while listening to heavy metal and meditation music. We wanted to find out how the results for these
two polar opposite types of music: a very calm and relaxing (meditation) and an aggressive one (heavy
metal) might differ. It is visible that there is an overall increasing pattern as the age of the subject
tested increases. However, when comparing the two genres, the data found are inconclusive, as for
some years like S1, S3, S4 and S7 heavy metal performance was superior to meditation, but classes like
S2, S5 and the S6 did better in the meditation music rather than the heavy metal.
The years S2, S5, S6 fulfilled our expectations, which were that aggressive genres of music would
restrict one’s capacity to memorise words. The other years, on the other hand, contradicted our
hypothesis coming out with a better result for heavy metal than for meditation.
The results with the highest difference between each other were the ones collected by the S7, who
obtained a difference of 1.267 words more in the heavy metal task than in the meditation. The S1, the
smallest age group, performed better in the heavy metal as well but had a smaller difference of only
0.072 between results.
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Chi-square analysis
After considering a variety of means to analyse our data, our group decided on the Chi-square test as
it proved to be the most efficient and reliable means of examination to test the independency of our
two variables, music and memory.
The formula used was:
The Chi-square test gives a p-value, the probability that the differences found in the observed data are
due to chance, which would mean that the variables are not dependent. If the p-value is higher than
0.05 the null hypothesis cannot be rejected and there is not enough statistical support to concretely
state that the difference in results found is more than just random chance.
Effect of different music genres
Table 1. Contingency table for the Chi-square test comparing average number of words memorised
with music and no music.
The table above displays the chi-square test result executed with the data for the average of all genres
for all grades when compared with the one for no music only. In this case, the null hypothesis is that
there is no difference between the average with music and with no music. With the p-value obtained
the null hypothesis cannot be rejected. This means that there is unfortunately not sufficient support
to deny the possibility of our findings being merely coincidental.
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Table 2. Contingency table for the Chi-square test comparing average number of words memorised
with each type of music and no music.
This table shows the chi-square calculation performed using the data found when comparing the
average for all grades and each specific music genre with the one for no music. The null hypothesis is
that there are no differences between the average with each type of music and with no music. All pvalues were above 0.05, which means that we could not refute the likelihood that the varying between
different types of music was simply by chance.
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Hypothesis
Chi-square analysis
Interpretation
P-value
Music affects student’s
0.780
concentration levels
The null hypothesis cannot be
rejected. There is a 78%
probability that our outcomes
were found by mere
coincidence.
Heavy Metal affects student’s
0.873
concentration
We cannot deny the null
hypothesis. There is an 87.3%
chance of the difference in
results between heavy metal
and no music being solely
coincidental.
Pop music affects student’s
0.752
concentration
The null hypothesis cannot be
rejected. There is a 75.2%
probability that our results
were found by chance.
Rap affects student’s
0.591
concentration
We cannot refute the null
hypothesis. The percentage
found, 59.1%, means that we
cannot deny the possibility
that the results were only
found by chance.
Meditation music affects
0.856
student’s concentration
The null hypothesis cannot be
rejected. There is an 85.6%
probability that our findings
were purely coincidental.
Pop music in a foreign music
affects student’s concentration
0.708
The percentage found, 70.8%,
is not enough to deny the null
hypothesis.
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Popular pop music affects
student’s concentration
0.701
The null hypothesis cannot be
refuted. At a percentage of
70.1%, the possibility that the
results were found by
coincidence can’t be
overlooked.
Table 3. Chi-square results for the tests of the hypothesis about the effect of music genres on
concentration.
Age difference
In the course of our experiment, we developed a hypothesis: The older the subject, the more words
they were able to memorise. We then proceeded to test this using the Chi-square test. By analysing
the results obtained by the pupils of S2 and S7 we were able to successfully refute the null hypothesis
which stated that age difference did not play a role in the capacity to memorize.
Table 4. Contingency table for the Chi-square test comparing average number of words memorised
in S2 and S7 with a popular pop song.
The data shows there is a mere 1.758% possibility of the difference observed between the ability to
memorize words improving with age having been found by chance, which gives great support to the
alternative hypothesis, this is, that older students are able to memorize more words when the test is
performed with pop music.
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Table 5. Contingency table for the Chi-square test comparing average number of words memorised
in S2 and S7 with a Heavy metal song.
The p-value found further when comparing S2 and S7 results in the test with Heavy Metal music
demonstrates that there is only 3.886% chance of the findings being solely coincidental, therefore that
as students get older their ability to memorize does improve significantly. This leads us to reject the
null hypothesis that age difference does not affect capacity to memorize.
Hypothesis
Chi-square analysis
Interpretation
P-value
Age affects capacity to
0.0176
The p-value found through the
memorise, as tested with the
data analysed refuted the null
results from popular pop
hypothesis. This means that our
music between the years S2
findings statistically prove that
and S7.
age difference definitely plays a
role in student’s capacity to
memorise.
Age affects capacity to
0.0389
The null hypothesis can, once
memorise, as tested with the
more, be denied. This means we
results from heavy metal
obtained concrete statistical
between the years S2 and S7.
prove for our hypothesis.
Table 6. Chi-square results for the tests of the hypothesis about the effect of age on the capacity to
memorise.
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Graph 8. Words most frequently memorized
Another interesting factor to be worth noted is the specific number of words memorized by the pupils
No music 1
3 words
2 words
1 word
Pop music
0 words
3 words
Rap
3 words
2 words
2 words
1 word
0 words
Heavy metal
1 word
0 words
3 words
2 words
1 word
0 words
throughout this test. This experiment had many crucial variables and one that was especially controlled
was the number of letters and words produced and used to assess the subjects. While it was agreed
to have an assortment of words made from different letters, with the easiest being 3- lettered and the
longest being 10-lettered, it came to our attention that the majority did in fact seem to memorise the
initial three lettered words more easily. This is observed when most could recall them when having to
write the words down.
Overall, from the pie charts above (Graph 8) it is apparent that more than 68% of the students were
able to recall all the first three lettered words. A significantly lower percentage (around 20%) only
recalled two out of the three initial words, while only the minority (less than 10%) achieved solely one
or none of the words. This is the case for not only one music genre but for all of them, ranging from no
music to pop to heavy metal to rap. All in all, most of the people seemed to be inclined to learn the
easy, simpler words first rather than the longer, more complicated ones.
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Types of Learners
While conducting the experiment, it also came to our attention that not only were there various results
but also a wide variety of learning techniques used. When researching online (The Four Different Types
of Learners, And What They Mean to Your Presentations [INFOGRAPHIC] (Accessed: January 2017)) we
found that there are numerous types of learners, however the four main types include: Kinesthetic
learners who learn well when they can move their body, and/or use their hands and sense of touch,
auditory learners who learn well when aided by music, sound, rhyme, rhythm, speaking or listening as
well as reading/writing learners who learn well by reading or writing the material they want to learn.
Last but not least, the fourth type of learner, and the most interesting in terms of the experiment, are
visual learners who learn well when aided by images, pictures, and so on. They became one of our
main focus among the tested subjects. There were a mix of learners however by analysing the results,
it became quite clear that those who learnt best visually were mostly the ones who went on to perform
exceptionally well in the task, scoring 19/20 or 20/20 words correctly. This deemed the case in most
music styles and although they were not the only best performers, they certainly had better scores
than most and some even succeeded into writing the exact order of the words as well as copying the
same structure and form of the list (in 2 columns).
The following pictures are examples of students who managed to score 20/20:
Figure 9: visual learners who scored highly
Figure 10: non-visual learner who scored highly
4. Discussion
The experiment conducted covered an array of music genres from pop and rap to meditation and
foreign language, which led to several new hypotheses in addition to our main one. Our initial
hypothesis stated that when listening to meditation music, students would be more concentrated then
when hearing more aggressive genres such as rap and heavy metal.
According to Hallam, S. et al. (2002) “The calming music led to better performance […] when compared
with no-music condition. Music perceived as arousing, aggressive and unpleasant disrupted
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performance on the memory task […]”. While this was somewhat similar to what we hoped to achieve,
our actual results differed and opposed this idea. Contradicting our expectations, meditation
performed below par with students executing the task worse than for genres such as heavy metal and
the negative control. In addition, heavy metal, a rather aggressive genre, also challenged our
hypothesis as it performed exceedingly well, much better than expected and came second overall
scoring an average of 12.346 out of 20 words.
However, after thoroughly investigating this issue further through the chi square analysis the p-value
obtained for meditation was 0.856 (85.607%) while the value for the heavy metal was 0.87298
(87.298%). Through this, it is clear that there is a possibility that the results were found by mere chance
and therefore the null hypothesis cannot be rejected.
On the other hand, there was one music genre that supported this theory. Rap, as predicted, came last
and obtained the worst results by far, with only 10.991 words on average.
So, while heavy metal and meditation did not live up to our expectations rap did as expected and
performed worse than both of them. Even though the results for rap fall into place with the hypothesis
it is only a partial contribution to the support of the general statement. Heavy metal and meditation,
do the opposite and its results oppose this idea. Based on the findings, despite having a supporting
genre, the other two contradict it and force us to reject our initial hypothesis.
The second hypothesis made stated that age played a key role in terms of memorization capabilities.
This statement was made later on during the experiment, after our group noticed a large result
difference between years such as S1/S2 and S5/S6/S7. After detecting a pattern relating age with
capacity to memorize, we were able to discern that older students would be more likely to memorise
more words than younger ones. Unlike our previous hypothesis, this theory was one for which we
obtained concrete statistical support, the chi-square analysis. Through the p-values it is obvious that
there is an apparent gap between the younger years, specifically the S1-S3 and the older years such as
S5-S7. Instead of looking into each one individually, it made more sense to look into detail and
thoroughly observe one concrete example, in this case the comparison between the S2 and the S7. It
was decided to further investigate a music genre that did well (heavy metal) as well as one that didn’t
do as well (pop music). The p-value attained for the heavy metal concluded to 0.0389, while the one
for pop music came to 0.0176. From this successful statistical analysis, our group deemed fitted to
reject the null hypothesis being hence able to say that age did indeed play a vital role in terms of shortterm memorization capabilities.
26
5. Conclusion
Through testing a collection of many music genres, ranging from meditation to pop, it can be seen that
this has varying effects on different people of all ages. While some, usually the visual learners,
completed the task with ease, scoring high results, others such as analytical learners found some
difficulties within some music styles such as rap. This tended to be the case among multiple classes,
and despite their performance also being based on numerous other factors, it simultaneously also
shows the capabilities in short-term memorization among different age groups.
6. Acknowledgments
We would like to thank our biology teacher, Dr. Oliván, who sacrificed her time to help us with this
project and supported us throughout. We would also like to thank Mr. Carr, Mr. Tzesos and Mrs.
Humphries who so kindly gave up their lessons and allowed us to perform our experiment on their
classes and finally to all the students for taking part.
Extras
The following are pictures of us conducting the experiment on two of the older years:
27
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