The Effects of Personal Listening Devices on Reading Comprehension

1. The Effects of Personal Listening Devices on Reading Comprehension Elizabeth McLaughlin and Kelly Fritschy

2. Growing trend: students are allowed to listen to their own personal music players while doing independent work • Students can personalize and switch music selections suite their taste • The results of previous studies on effects of music on comprehension have been mixed Problem

3. 1.) The effect of music on comprehension scores: • Directional Research Hypothesis: Graduate students who listen to music on a personal listening device while reading will show lower scores on a reading comprehension test than those who do not. • Null Hypothesis: Graduate students who listen to music on a personal listening device while reading will have the same or higher scores on a reading comprehension test than those who do not. 2.) The effect of switching music selections while reading • Directional Research Hypothesis: Graduate students who change music selections on a personal listening device while reading will show lower scores on a reading comprehension test than those who do not. • Null Hypothesis: Graduate students who change music selections on a personal listening device while reading will show the same or higher scores on a reading comprehension test than those who do not. Hypothesis

4. The sample of participants consisted of eleven graduate students (10 female, 1 male) who were recruited through an educational research course at Salem State University in the spring of 2012. There were six participants in the experimental group, and five participants in the control group. Sample

5. The participants were randomly divided into: • Experimental: instructed to listen to their personal listening device • Control: instructed not to listen to anything • Both groups read two one-page reading selections that were followed by multiple choice comprehension questions. • Participants completed a brief post-survey on their study habits and interactions with the personal listening device during experiment. Design

6. Two one page reading selections (approximately 400-600 words each) taken from the Massachusetts Test for Educator Licensure (MTEL) Communications and Literacy Skills Practice Reading Subtest. • The reading selections were titled “IbnBattuta” and “Nellie Bly” and included multiple choice comprehension questions from the practice test after each of the readings • Post-survey developed by the researchers using Likert-scale questions. • How often they listened to music while studying. • Experimental group was asked whether or not they manually switched music on their personal listening devices during the study, and how often. Instruments

7. Results: Percentage correct on comprehension questions

8. Results: Effect of music on comprehension

9. Results: Effect of manually switching music while reading

10. The implications of this study suggest that since there was no significant difference between the scores of the experimental and control group then music has no effect on reading comprehension. • Caution: sample size was small, gender was homogenous Implications