Girls who are known to be multitasked seem to be distracted less then boys while listening to music and studying
On the next page is a sample of the questionnaire I made and handed out. I produced 63 copies and handed all of them out to different people who I thought were students. I handed out the questionnaires face to face in grand Cineplex, not only is this the best cinema in the United Arab Emirates but it also has a number of shops including, a café, couple of cloths shops, and arcade and a music store.
Once all the 63 copies had been completed I selected 50 questionnaires and made sure 25 of them were of males and 25 of them were of females this makes it easier for me to analyze and compare.
Here is the questionnaire…
Please fill out the following questionnaire if you are a student only by simply ticking your answer. All your answers will be used for research purposes only and therefore it is very important that you don’t make any answers up. We thank you for your time and co-operation.
- Sex.
[ ] Male
[ ] Female
- What is you age?
[ ] 5 - 8
[ ] 9 - 12
[ ] 13 - 16
[ ] 17 - 20
[ ] 21 - 24
[ ] 25 +
- In which of the following places do you study?
[ ] School
[ ] High school
[ ] College
[ ] University
[ ] Institute
[ ] Other
- Do you listen to music while studying
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
- If you do then does it help you to concentrate?
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
- What type of music do you listen to?
[ ] Rap
[ ] Pop
[ ] Rock
[ ] Heavy metal
[ ] Reggae
[ ] Other
- What is your average grade?
[ ] A
[ ] B
[ ] C
[ ] D
[ ] E
[ ] F
The questionnaire went well with almost everyone. The only challenge I faced was that some of the people didn’t understand one or two questions. Mainly the last one in which I have asked, “What is your average grade”? Therefore I had to explain it to them and no one seemed to mind answering it. I suppose they felt comfortable knowing I also was a teenager who’s average is C! (It’s actually B).
It took me around 2 hours to get all the questionnaires filled and I faced no difficulties from security or any other employees in the cinema and surrounding shops.
Instead of including all 50 questionnaires into this coursework I summarized everything and placed it in to a table.
Here is my table of results
The table above contains all the results to all the questions.
Notice on the fifth question the frequency of people reach above 50; this is because most people wanted to choose more then one style of music. When it came to the question on average marks people once again wanted to choose more then one mark but this would cause confusion when analyzing so I kindly requested that they only choose one.
Over the next few pages you will see a number of different graphs representing the above questions. The purpose of these graphs is so that I can easily compare results. It shows the results of each question in a format, which is very easy to understand, and helps with the analysis.
Here are the graphs…
Mean = the sum total of all the items of data divided by the number of items.
Median = the item of data in the middle once all the items have been put in order of size from lowest to highest.
In this case we do:
Mode = the item of data that occurs the most:
Mean = 25 + 25 / 2
= 25
Median = 25 + 25 / 2
= 50
Mode = 25
Because both the values are the same (and there are only two) the mean, median and mode are the same.
In certain graphs such as the one above (in this case) it is unnecessary to find the mean or median. The mode is unnecessary also because it is unneeded.
But the mode for this bar graph is NO (because 29 people have said that).
60% of the people said that music help them to concentrate
40% of the people said that no, it doesn’t help them to concentrate.
By comparing graphs I found out that one person listens to music even though it does not help he/she to concentrate.
In this pie chart, the average age is ≈ 16.
People here were allowed to choose more than one category of music so even though there are only 50 people the total number reaches 69.
From this we can see that the most common grade is a B.
One person said that their average grade was F; there is a 50/50% chance that he/she was either messing around or telling the truth
To be able to prove my hypothesis I will have to look at my questionnaire results in more detail.
Hypothesis no. 1
Music does not help you to concentrate while studying:
By looking at our table of results we can see that 21 people do listen to music when they are studying and 29 people do not listen to music while studying.
When asked does it help you to concentrate 20 people said it does and 30 people said it doesn’t. This means that one person listens to music while studying even though it does not help him to concentrate.
Even though there are only two points we can see that there is a positive correlation. This means that my first hypothesis was correct.
Music does not help you to concentrate while studying.
Hypothesis no. 2
Rock music has the worst effect on students who are listening to music while trying to learn.
When asked what music do you like listening to 5 boys and 3 girls said rock.
I analyzed their questionnaires and the same people who said they listen to rock had the following marks.
Boys:
- B
- C
- C
- C
- D
Girls:
- B
- A
- C
I will now compare these results with the grades of those that like Heavy metal music.
As we can see from the scatter diagram there is no correlation. Even from the table above we can see that when compared rock music is no different from heavy metal. It has the same effect as the others.
Hence my theory is proved incorrect. Rock music has the same effect as all other music.
Hypothesis no. 3
If you are aged 12 – 13 then music does not have an effect on you while you are studying.
There are 6 people aged from 12 – 13
1. SEX: M 2.SEX: M 3.SEX: F
AGE: 12 AGE: 12 AGE: 13
AVERAGE GRADE: D AVERAGE GRADE: B AVERAGE GRADE: B
4.SEX: F 5. SEX: M 6. SEX: M
AGE: 13 AGE: 13 AGE: 13
AVERAGE GRADE: C AVERAGE GRADE: C AVERAGE GRADE: C
In this graph I have used a certain number to represent each grade.
A = 100 B = 90 C = 80 D = 70 E = 60 F = 50
The modal grade here is C (80)
There is not much of a correlation but from what we can see it looks negative. This means that my hypothesis turned out wrong.
Children from the age of 12- 13 are not different from any other group of teenagers (studying and listening to music wise).
Hypothesis no. 4
Girls get distracted less then boys while listening to music and studying.
Girl’s grades:
Boy’s grades:
There is a method I use to calculate who has the higher average of marks. Is it the boys? Or is it the girls?
Here is how I find out.
Girls:
(100 * 9) + (90 * 10) + (80 * 6)
= 2280 / 6
= 380
Boys:
(100 * 4) + (90 * 10) + (80 * 8) + (70 * 2) + (50 * 1)
= 2130 / 6
= 355
So this means that the girls get higher marks. From the line graph we can see that the line representing the boys grades ends before line the girls line. This also shows that the marks are lower.
From the graph there is a slight positive correlation. This means my hypothesis was correct. Girls are less affected then boys who listen to music while studying.
Conclusion
I have now, finally, reached the end of this coursework. My entire hypotheses have been proved with the help of statistics. This coursework has helped me understand statistics and I know understand where it is necessary to use mean, median and mode. I have received very little help in how to do this coursework and I have used past coursework experience in how to lay things out.
But overall I think I managed to do all that was necessary and I am to get a B.
Thank you very much for going through this coursework.
Adam khan
Intermediate level
Grade 11.
