Science fair??

Question

i am trying to make a basic test that I could use in my science fair project to test on 4 eighth graders. I am making it to test w/ music and I want to see if they do better while listening to a certain type of music. Please try and make up a simple test and If I like it I will vote you as best answer. TYTYTY

Answer 1

Actually, that's a really interesting science project. It'd have to be a timed essay type test to be fair... Pick three types of music (classical, rock, rap, or whatever so long as the three are distinctly different). Give each student a specific time (half an hour or so) to read a paragraph and write an essay answer about what they have read. That means each student has to write three essays, one for each type of music that they will be listening to.

Make sure to note exactly which music they were listening to at the top of each essay. Compare the papers for grammar, spelling, coherence, handwriting, and length. It's quite possible that they will get more written while listening to rock, but have better handwriting and grammar with classical.

Since each student has different base abilities, it's pointless to compare one persons paper to anothers... but see if the changes in writing style are consistent (ie. does one person write better with jazz and another writes better with opera?)

You may also want to have the participants note at the top of each page wether or not they Liked the music that was playing. It's possible that the distraction of bad music might affect the outcome... (if someone likes rap, they may do better, while someone who hates rap might be too distracted to concentrate).

good luck.

Answer 2

I would do four different types of music since there are four students to be tested. I would test them for 5 mins each so it doesn't take a lot of time. I would also test them at different times. I would choose a heavy metal type, nature themed one, rap, and maybe country or hip hop. I would then choose a topic out of the encyclopedia and have them read about it for five mins. Have your questions already written out. Then ask them to answer 5 questions about what they just read. Then have the same student to the exact same for the other songs making sure there are other things to read. If they read the same thing over and over then they will be able to answer the questions correctly. So you will have to basically compose as many tests as you have songs.