Chapter 20, Experiment

Mr. Simoncini

Question: Does television, even without sound, distract students from providing their full attention to a lesson offered by a teacher? Specifically, will sophomore world history students at Oakdale High School do better on an assignment where the teacher presents them a historical vignette then gives them a 7-question quiz on that vignette, when there is no other distraction in the classroom, than will another group of sophomore world history students at Oakdale High School who are administered the same assignment while the classroom television is on with the sound muted?

Hypothesis. Students can be distracted by soundless moving pictures when a teacher is presenting history material, no matter how compelling the material might be. The result will be lower scores on tests when compared to scores recorded by other student groups who have been exposed to no or less distractions.

Experiment. Using the textbook supplement for the World History textbook, the teacher will read the students in Period 3 a story pertinent to the Renaissance. While he is reading the story, the classroom TV will be on, but the sound will be turned down. The teacher will have the TV tuned-in to VH1—a station where there is action that might attract teenagers. After reading the story, the teacher will immediately administer a 7-question quiz on what he had just read the students. This group will be the experimental group and the TV will be the independent variable.

The teacher will read the same story and administer the same quiz to his 2nd period world history class. During this phase of the experiment, however, the TV will be off. This group will be the control group.

The teacher will have the students buddy-score the quizzes and, later, he will determine the mode, median and mean scores of the test. The teacher predicts that the control group will score higher on the quiz, both in median and mean scores, because they will not be distracted by the soundless television.

Attachments:

  1. The story
  2. The quiz
  3. The tabulated test results by period
  4. Analysis of the data
  5. Conclusions

Chapter 20 Experiment

Tabulated Results by Period

Score2nd Per (Control)3d Per (Experiment)

001

103

212

337

495

595

6 10 13

740

Totals 36 36

Mean54.19

Mode66

Median54

Analysis

As the teacher read the story in the approximate same amount of time in both periods, and with equal amounts of expression, enthusiasm, and key word prompts, the respective settings for the samples were valid. The second period control group (no television playing—no distractions) earned a higher mean score by nearly an entire point when compared to the experimental group (television playing, tuned to VH1, no sound). Additionally, the median scores also had a one point differential—the 18th, or middle score, for the experimental group was 4 correct answers while the 18th score for the control group was 5. The mode for both groups was a score of 6. While none of these differences is overwhelming, the fact that there are one-point differentials in a 7-point test does indicate some validity in the hypothesis. Additionally, after being informed that they were the experimental group in a psychology experiment, many students in the 3d period class indicated that they had been distracted by the television show.

Conclusion

The test results tend to bear out the experimenter’s hypothesis and prediction. Students in the 3d period class did score lower in mean and median than did the second period class. Consequently, it is safe to assert that for some students television can be a distraction when they are engaged in learning activities.