Multitasking While Studying

...

technology and distractions we have. The first article says how the brain can only take one thought at a time and that breaks make the brain confused and unfocused. (Sciencebuddies.org, 2014). I think that goes along with how the second article talks about not learning the material as well while multitasking because taking little breaks causes your brain to unfocus which makes you not learn as well. The second article proves the third one right about because they actually tested it.

There is not much contrast in these articles but there are some things that the other didn’t have. The third article thinks studying while multitasking is so bad that she wants to raise the awareness of the negativity it has on them to students. That article is trying to help people. The second one brought up a good point about how much students rely on technology to do their work. Getting use to using technology for your shoolwork makes you more use to getting on a device to distract you. No other article I read brought that point up.

In conclusion, from this research paper it looks most likely that multitasking while studying just gives a negative outcome. I realized also that the main distractions that make people multitasking while studying involves technology. There isn’t much I can do to get all students around the world to stop multitaslking while doing schoolwork. But anyone can raise awareness.

Materials List

study guides

tests

pencil

desk

timer

computer

radio station

book

classroom

30 volunteers

Procedure

I will give each volunteer a study guide to study. The study guide has 30 vocabulary words. They will have 10 minutes to study the voabulary. The first 15 volunteers will have music playing loud while studying. I will also be reading a book to them while they are studying. After the 10 minutes are up, they take a test on all the words from the study guide. The study guide has 8 fill in the blanks, 8 matching, 7 multiple choice, and 7 true/ false questions. The volunteers were told to answer all that they remember. I will then grade the papers to see if multitasking- listening to music and me- while studying affected their test results.

The second group of 15 volunteers has the same exact study guide and test. They also study for 10 minutes. The difference is that they study in silence. They do not have to listen to music nor me reading. I would then grade those papers too. I compare the results of the tests to see which group of 15 did better.

Data

My observations from my first group of 15 were expected. I had music playing loudly and I was reading to them while they were studying. Half of them kept looking up frustrated because they were not able to focus. Some students were laughing, not taking it very serious. About half of the volunteers, I could tell, were not trying hard to study the study guide. A few did take it serious and were tying hard to focus on it. The data from this test is below.

Data table on test 1

Names

Number of questions correct

Number of questions wrong

Carlee Taylorson

25

5

Madison Schwant

24

6

Sarah Cox

22

6

Zoe Helland

19

11

Trey Williams

25

5

Brody Daigle

20

10

Chad Dykes

6

24

Katie Zeigler

27

3

Carson Smith

24

6

Micah Herring

23

7

Nick Adams

22

8

Anna Norris

20

10

Tripp Kennon

21

9

Chase Baker

16

14

Reganne Nowell

27

3

Average

21

9

The blue lines in this represent the number of questions correct. The red lines represent the number of questions answered incorrectly.

I found out that most volunteers did well with listening to music and reading while studying. 14 out of 15 got over half of the questions correct. The average of questions correct was 21. The average of answers incorrect was 9. These 15 students should listen to music while studying more often.

My observations from my second group of 15 were expected also. These volunteers were supposed to study for 10 minutes in silence then take the test.Students were being immature and goofy. Some tried to make jokes. They talked every once in a while. They