Background: Music and Reading Comprehension Study

An increasing number of students listen to music while studying. Some educators believe that background music distracts students from deep comprehension. A group of researchers investigated whether students' ability to comprehend complex text is affected by listening to background instrumental music.

An opportunity sample of 24 undergraduate students from a local university took part in the experiment. There were 14 females and 10 males, aged 18–21 years. The students were randomly assigned to either the 'music' condition or the 'silent' condition, with 12 students in each condition.

In the 'music' condition, 12 students were taken to a quiet study room. They were asked to put on headphones playing mid-tempo instrumental jazz. They were given a 2-page scientific article about marine ecosystems to read over a 10-minute period. At the end of the 10 minutes, the students individually completed a 15-item comprehension quiz about the article.

In the 'silent' condition, 12 students were taken to an identical study room. They were asked to wear headphones but no music was played (silence). They read the same article for 10 minutes and completed the same 15-item comprehension quiz.

Before the experiment, the researchers told the students that they were piloting a new reading comprehension assessment tool for university admissions. They did not tell them any other details about the true purpose of the study. All students were fully debriefed afterwards.

The comprehension tests were scored out of 15. The findings from the 'music' condition were: mean = 10.20, standard deviation = 2.80. The findings from the 'silent' condition were: mean = 12.80, standard deviation = 1.15.

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As part of the procedure for this experiment, students were given a set of standardised instructions and were fully debriefed at the end of their participation.

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