What different types of music help kids work better ? BY: Baylee Maskil

Introduction I heard about these studies saying music is helpful in testing. So I wanted to see if it actually worked, and if it worked best in boys or girls. Also which genre.

Background Information Music can be divided into many genres in many different ways. These classifications are often arbitrary and controversial, and closely related styles often overlap. Many do not believe that generic classification of musical styles is possible in any logically consistent way, and also argue that doing so sets limitations and boundaries that hinder the development of music. While no one doubts that it is possible to note similarities between musical pieces, there are often exceptions and caveats associated. Labeling music with genres often does not reflect a specific culture, race, or time period. Larger genres consist of more specific subgenres.

Hypothesis My hypothesis is that pop music will help them finish their task the fastest because they will get in the groove and just have fun with it.

Materials -Science Explorer class -Different Types of Music (like Country, Christmas Country, Rock, & Pop. -A Created Worksheet for them to work on.

Procedure Gather materials. Have the students get a partner. Give each pair of partners a stop watch. Play one pop song for the first 4 questions. Switch partners and have them do the 4 questions (be timing them and write down how long it took them to finish the 4 questions). Repeat steps 4 and 5 but with different genres of music. (The different types of music are pop, hot country, hip hop, and holiday country.)

Major Observations They didn’t really take it seriously. It was kind of annoying.

Results I found out the pop music didn’t really help them. The type of music that was soft or the type that they didn’t really know made them get to work more. They started to get up and dance and I felt like they didn’t really know what they were supposed to do. They came around after about the 3rd song.

Conclusion My hypothesis was incorrect. I thought that they would get a rhythm to their favorite genre and they would do better, but they were messing around and dancing until they figured they had to go a little quickly.

Possible Applications In school, they try to help us work by putting on music. Sometimes it makes us work faster. I think other times it just makes us goof around.

Possible Causes of Error I didn’t play the same song every time. I tested the boys once and girls twice. I didn’t explain my project that well. I changed the worksheet that I had them do.

Further Research We could see if it helps one gender more than the other. Or if a different type of music helps more than the other (I only tested 4 different genres).

Time Spent I spent Science Explorer classes, Math class time, and Science 7A time.

Bibliography

Acknowledgements I want to thank Mrs. Riffel for letting me use part of her Science 7B time. I also want to thank Mrs. Ball for letting me go over to Mrs.Riffel’s class to test. Also, thanks to 7th graders for participating in my project.