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This study utilized undergraduate students (n=72) from a required music appreciation class in a small university located in the North Central region of the country. This group of subjects was selected based on their availability and their academic and socioeconomic diversity. The subjects were primarily traditional university age students (18-22) and approximately equal in gender representation. Though some of the students may have had previous musical backgrounds, none of the students serving as subjects were music majors. The students were mostly from rural communities and represented a cross section of the university community. There was some ethnic and social diversity, however, the class could be described as homogeneous.

The independent variables were the background music conditions: classical, popular, and none; and the five music listening styles as defined by Hedden (1971): associative, cognitive, physical, involvement, and enjoyment. Hedden used all five music listening styles in testing the reaction to both classical and popular music. The dependent variables for the present study were math test scores.

Since the terms classical and popular music may cover a wide range of stylistic variance, this study used specific musical examples. Stewart (1984)found a difference between subjects' responses to verbal and operant preferences that varied among musical styles. The present study controlled for that difference by specifically defining classical and popular music with operant musical examples which the subjects were (for the purposes of this study) to consider typical of that musical style.

To begin this study, the subjects listened to a short except (one minute of the first movement) from Mozart's Divertimento No. 12 in E-flat, K. 252, performed by The New York Philomusica (CDX 5051). The proctor turned off the music and instructed the students that, for the purposes of this study, they were to consider the example typical of classical music. The proctor then asked the students to fill out Hedden's music listening reaction scale for classical music. The Hedden music listening reaction scale consists of twenty questions, each followed bv a bar scale allowing the subject to indicate the strength of this response in a scale of one to one hundred. Next, the subjects listened to a short excerpt (one minute) of ZZ Top's Somebody Else Been Shakin' Your Tree that, for the purposes of this study, they were to consider to be typical of popular music. The proctor then asked them to fill out Hedden's music listening reaction scale for popular music; also with the music turned off. The questions for the popular music listening reaction scale are identical to the classical music listening reaction scale. In his dissertation Hedden provides a formula for computing a value for the five music listening styles on a scale from one to one hundred based on the raw data.

During the next three class sessions (the class met twice weekly) the subjects completed three parallel forms of a math test, consisting of 16 questions each. The three test forms were derived from a math placement test used during the 1980's by the university's math department. The reliabilities of the three test forms for this sample were computed by Cronbach's alpha and Cochran's Q and were found to be acceptable (see Table 1).

Table 1

Reliability Estimates for the Three Math Tests

CLASTST (classical music)

POPTST (popular music)

CONTST (no background music)

Before passing out math test form one, the proctor instructed the class that they would have 10 minutes to complete the 16 math questions. Mozart's Divertimento No. 12 in E-flat, K. 252 was playing at a comfortable listening level for taking the test (as determined by class consensus) and the subjects were given the choice of where to sit in a large classroom with the loudspeakers at the front. The proctor then distributed the math test during which the music continued throughout the administration of the test. After ten minutes the proctor told the students to put down their pencils and pass in the tests. The music played during the entire test administration of about fourteen minutes. During the next class session, the proctor followed the same procedure for math test form two except three ZZ Top recordings (Somebodv Else Been Shakin' Your Tree, Brown Sugar, and Squank) provided the background music. Again, the music played during the entire test administration. For the third math test form the proctor played no music during the testing.

Regression analyses were used to analyze the data. The independent variables were the music listening style scores and the math test condition with no background music (CONTST). The dependent variables were the math test scores under the music listening conditions of classical (CLASTST) and popular (POPTST). Also, as an independent variable in a post hoc procedure, students were asked to answer yes or no to the following statments: "When I study, listening to classical music interferes with my concentration" and "When I study, listening to popular music interferes with my concentration".

Results

To determine the effects of music listening style scores and the background music conditions, CLASTST (the test taken with classical background music) and POPTST (the test taken with popular background music) were regressed on their respective music listening style scores and CONTST (the control test with no background music). Table 2 lists the variable labels.

Table 2

Variable Names

CLASSICAL MUSIC LISTENING STYLES

POPULAR MUSIC LISTENING STYLES

Tables 3 and 4 show the results of two regression analyses. The results indicated there are no music listening style variables that have any statistically significant effect on the test score difference for either the classical or the popular music listening condition. CONTST has a statistically significant effect on the two dependent variables. This may indicate that people who perform w ell in math also perform well studying math under background music conditions.

Table 3

Regression Analysis for CLASTST Regressed on the Music Listening Style Scores for Classical Music and CONTST

Table 4

Regression Analysis for POPTST Regressed on the Music Listening Siyle Scores for Popular Music and CONTST

A t-test was used to analyze the differences among the test score means for CLASTST, POPTST, and CONTST. Table 5 presents the comparison of math test score means and their corresponding t-tests. The t-test revealed no statistically significant differences among the three testing conditions. One may assume that the presence of either classical or popular background music had no effect on the subjects' math test performance.

Table 5

Comparison of Math Test Score Means

Table 6 presents the results of the post-hoc procedure where the variables YC ("When I study, listening to classical music interferes with my concentration") and YP ("When I study, listening to popular music interferes with my concentration") were coded 1 for a yes and 0 for a no response. 33% of the respondents indicated that classical music interferes with their studying, while 43% of the subjects indicated that popular music interferes with their studying. The variables CLASTST and POPTST were then regressed on YC and YP respectively, Controlling for CONTST . The variables YC and YP also had no statistically significant effect on, or correlation with, CLASTST and POPTST respectively. Also, the various independent variables were tested for interactions and curvilinearity, revealing no statistically significant results as illustrated in Table 7.

Table 6