The Effect of Listening to Music While Taking Standardized Tests

Overview

Classical music is known to have a calming effect on people and has been used to study the effect of test taking abilities. By testing students’ speeds while taking standardized tests it was hypothesized that classical music will help students perform faster than if they were to take a test in silence. The steps that were taken include getting copies of multiplication tests to test subjects and having them take a control test in silence while recording their times. Then having separate groups take multiplication tests while listening to music: either classical, country, or rock. The results were recorded and displayed in a number of ways to easily see the results. The results showed that both classical music and rock music positively impacted the speed of students when taking standardized tests. Nine out of ten students finished faster when listening to rock music. Classical music helped students to finish faster as well, with seven out of ten students finishing faster than in a quiet environment. Country music did not help the majority of students as much as the others, with only four out of ten students finishing faster while listening to country music compared to silence. This experiment showed that rock and classical music can assist students and allow them to perform faster while taking standardized tests compared to taking a test in a quiet environment. This supports the idea that listening to music, specifically classical music, while taking standardized tests can be beneficial to students.

Competition history

• ISEF 2023 Behavioral and Social Sciences · Entry BEHA023 · Dallas, Texas, United States Affiliated fair in SC, United States of America

Resources

• ISEF abstract page ↗

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