Does Taking Breaks Affect Studying

...

Now for all of the groups after studying, test taking, and answering the demographics, the debriefing was displayed on the projector screen explaining what the experiment was about.

Results

Analyzing a 2x2 Anova to see if our hypotheses was right and was it significant. In my first hypotheses the main effect of students listening to instrumental music was not statistically significantly, F= (1, 88) =3.74, p=.60, pes=.084. This would allow us to examine students who listen to instrumental music (m=10.65) has no effect on memorization. Concluding that listening to instrumental music has no effect on the words memorized.

Now, the main effect of students who study with breaks was not statistically significant, F=(1, 88) =3.20, p=.07, pes=.035. Students that took a break (m=9.69) had an effect on memorization compared to students who did not take a break (m=10.98). Our research shows taking a break does affect memorization.

The interaction in this study focused on breaks and listening to music, resulting in no interaction. The interaction between taking breaks and listening to music was not statistically significant, F=(1, 88) =.475, p=.493, pes=.005. Results show that taking a break (m=9.69) and listening to music (m=10.65) has no interaction. I was disappointed in the results because I was hoping that they would be significant. I would like students to be enlighten to see how they can improve their study habits so they can improve their test scores.

Discussion

Our study assessed that taking breaks affects memorization, and through observation of the participants combined with the test scores. Students who had breaks slightly recalled the correct words more effectively. Our hypotheses was students who took study breaks memorized more words. Our results were not significant. Meaning that there was not a huge difference from the participants that did not take a break, to say that taking breaks while studying is more sufficient. In a study I reviewed (Gurung, 2005) found that the students who listened to music, use the internet while studying, or not showing up to class did poorly on the exams. Through our questions at the end over half of the participants thought that the music was distracting. Which this opens up more research for others about music and studying. What I concluded about that was it is better to have a soothing noise rather different tempos going on while you are reading and memorizing.

This study implicates that either method for studying is fine, and provides insight to for college students to find better ways to study that works for them. As an individual you have to figure out what works best for your brain for retaining information. Majority of the participants do take study breaks, noted from their response from the demographic questions. But there was a small percentage of students that study without breaks. Honestly, the students who did not take a break memorized the words in order of the list and continued repeating the words after the list was collected. The groups that had a break did not keep rehearsing the words they just study. I believe that small break did decay some of the words studied.

However, I felt that there were some errors and limitations that restricted a more successful experiment. The time limit for studying per group really did not fit to have any external validity. It has some validity, but it was not realistic because most study time at least takes an hour or two. I believe this type of experiment applies to the issue of cram studying. I saw the students as they were studying were really memorizing and repeating the words, just as you would when you look at the last few things before you take a test. Also, another limitation was the actual time to perform the experiment. Meaning that since we are students as well we had a cutoff date to start running our experiment. If we were allotted more time I believe that we could have more significant results and have increased our external and internal validity.

Some errors that happened while preparing and conducting this study was the blank lines on the test sheet were numbered incorrectly. The students were supposed to write what words they could recall from the list of fifteen words they had studied. But since the number ten was wrote twice, and a line was missing to complete the total of a visible fifteen lines seem to cause a problem. Most students only wrote as many words that fitted on each line. Some memorized the words so well they wrote the last word underneath the last line, even though the last line was not on there. Therefore, that hindered our results because probably many students assumed that the lines available were all they needed to write. As a group I think that we should have reviewed all paperwork involved more. I also felt that to make our design compelling we could have either made the words more difficult or added more words to the list. I felt that the ceiling affect was caused by lack of challenging words. But we did not think something so simple could have an effect on the study. I would certainly take these measures into account for any future studies.

References

Anderson, S., & Fuller, G. (2010). Effect of music on reading comprehension of junior high school students. School Psychology Quarterly, 178-187.http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.csun.edu/10.1037/a0021213

Bartoszewski, B., & Gurung, R. (2015). Comparing the relationship of learning techniques and exam score. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 1, 219-228.

Bisaglia, L., & Gerolimetto, M. (2008). Testing structural breaks versus long memory with the Box–Pierce statistics: A Monte Carlo study. Statistical Methods and Applications Stat Methods Appl, 543-553.

Gurung, R. (2005). How Do Students Really Study (and Does It Matter)? Teaching of Psychology, 32, 239-240. Retrieved December 6, 2015, from gurungr@uwgb.edu

Hadwin, A., Winne, P., Stockley, D., Nesbit, J., & Woszczyna, C. (2006). Context moderates students' self-reports about how they study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 477-487.

Klin, C. (2006). Causal inferences in reading: From immediate activation to long-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 1483-1494. http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.csun.edu/10.1037/0278-7393.21.6.1483