The Effect of Background Music on the Mathematics Test Anxiety of ...

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20 background music on reading comprehension exams than students that studied in silence (Etaugh and Michal, 1975; Etaugh and Ptasnik, 1982). In the 1975 study by Etaugh and Michal, 32 undergraduates were permitted to listen to music <strong>of</strong> their choice. Each participant was instructed to read a passage and answer five questions in silence. A second similar passage was then given to the participants to be read while listening to their music selection. <strong>The</strong> students completed five questions pertaining to the passage. <strong>The</strong> students were asked if they study to music frequently, occasionally, or never. Listening to music <strong>of</strong> one’s choice interfered with the performance <strong>of</strong> females but not males. <strong>The</strong> results also suggested that the more frequently students reported studying to music, the less impaired their performance. Several studies found that background music had no significant effect on mathematics test performance. Wolfe (1983) researched the use <strong>of</strong> four volume levels <strong>of</strong> music while computing mathematics problems. Participants, 200 undergraduate nonmusic majors, were randomly assigned to 4 treatment groups. <strong>The</strong> groups were task only (no music), task plus background music at 60 – 70 dB, task plus background music at 70 – 80 dB, and task plus background music at 80 – 90 dB. For the three music groups, the music consisted <strong>of</strong> four instrumental selections from motion picture sound tracks. <strong>The</strong> results indicated no significant difference in the number <strong>of</strong> problems completed by each group. Also there was no significant difference in the number <strong>of</strong> math problems completed correctly among the four groups. <strong>The</strong> participants were given a questionnaire concerning the effect <strong>of</strong> the loudness on their ability to complete the task. More participants in the 80 - 90 decibel music group felt that the loudness <strong>of</strong> the musical selections seemed to interfere with computing the math problems.
21 Two studies were conducted by Cool et al. (1994) to determine if listening to the radio or watching television had an effect on task performance. Both studies used 12 sixth grade students as the participants. <strong>The</strong> researchers concluded that neither television nor radio affected the student performance on arithmetic problems or reading comprehension, however, it was found that the students working in the television environment completed fewer problems than the students listening to the radio or working in quiet. This was attributed to time spent watching the television. Mowesian and Heyer (1973) tested the basic arithmetic skills <strong>of</strong> tenth grade students under five different music style conditions: silence, rock music, folk music, classical-instrumental, and classical-vocal. No significant mean exam score differences were found among the five music conditions. <strong>The</strong>y suggested that "because music or some other distracter so frequently accompanies participants' studying, music may be assumed to raise their morale" (p. 108) and that music "may make studying and testtaking less tedious, boring, and anxiety-producing" (p. 108). Instead <strong>of</strong> music style conditions, Wolf and Weiner (1972) tested arithmetic performance during four noise conditions: quiet, speech (evening news at 87 dB), music (hard rock at 95 dB), and industrial noise (wood-working shop noise at 105 dB). Students in the music condition had a higher proportion <strong>of</strong> correct answers than students in the industrial noise condition. Scores under the quiet and speech conditions were no different than the scores under the music condition. Performing a mathematical task does not seem to be affected by the presence <strong>of</strong> background music. <strong>The</strong> last section <strong>of</strong> this review will look at background music’s effect on anxiety.
Page 1 and 2: The Effect
Page 3 and 4: iii Acknowledgements I would like t
Page 5 and 6: v Table of Content
Page 7 and 8: vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Factors
Page 9 and 10: CHAPTER 1 Rationale, Literature Rev
Page 11 and 12: 3 Spielberger (1985) described trai
Page 13 and 14: 5 Factor analyses. Researchers have
Page 15 and 16: 7 Anxiety Subscale of</stro
Page 18 and 19: 10 Table 1 (continued) Ferguson (19
Page 20 and 21: 12 to 66 students attending the Tex
Page 22 and 23: 14 the Missouri Mathematics Placeme
Page 24 and 25: 16 differences between the mean exa
Page 26 and 27: 18 students to one of</stro
Page 30 and 31: 22 Anxiety level. Researchers have
Page 32 and 33: 24 The final study
Page 34 and 35: 26 Definitions math-test-anxious st
Page 36 and 37: 28 group, while sections 002 and 00
Page 38 and 39: 30 Research Question 1. Does the us
Page 40 and 41: 32 CHAPTER 3 Results This research
Page 42 and 43: 34 Table 2 Hypothesis 1B: 2 (Anxiet
Page 44 and 45: 36 Hypothesis 2A The</stron
Page 46 and 47: 38 Table 3 Hypothesis 2B: Pre-Exam
Page 48 and 49: 40 group between lower anxiety and
Page 50 and 51: 42 Figure 2 Hypothesis 2B: Interact
Page 52 and 53: 44 CHAPTER 4 Discussion The
Page 54 and 55: 46 low anxiety students or the high
Page 56 and 57: 48 References Alexander, L., & Cobb
Page 58 and 59: 50 D'Ailly, H., & Bergering, A. (19
Page 60 and 61: 52 Mowsesian, R., & Heyer, M. (1973
Page 62 and 63: 54 Wolf, R., & Weiner, F. (1972). <
Page 64 and 65: 56 APPENDIX A Last 4 digits <strong

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