Frank Tremain

During the semester, I researched why students listened to music while studying and what the most popular genre is. This is a well-researched topic from academics across the world and the starting point of my research began by looking at the Mozart Effect. This was a study that I was familiar with, but by investigating further into it, and the studies that followed, I recognised that there were two angles I could take.

The first angle could focus on the scientific side, looking at the cognitive benefits that music has on us while studying. However, I decided to steer away from this and look at how music makes students feel while studying and how by better understanding this, we can improve our productivity.

Approaching my primary research, I began with a survey I made on Google Forms and distributed it through Twitter. It consisted of 12 questions, collecting quantitative and qualitative from the 70 respondents were answered. I would’ve liked to have received more answers and I could have achieved this by being more interactive with the Hong Kong BCM210 class. That being said, I was pretty active on Twitter and this gained responses from 35% of the entire BCM212 cohort.

Originally, I was going to conduct a content analysis on the study playlists of BCM212 students. After my survey though, only 12 participants had linked their own playlists indicating that people use others more than creating their own. Due to the previously stated and time constraints, I decided against the content analysis and thought of the idea to create a study playlist. This playlist would be a collaborative effort that would act as an experiment for students to listen and determine what music works best for them.

This was a topic that I am extremely passionate about and I was excited to research it. I had previous experience in ethical research so I did not find that aspect too challenging, however, what I did find difficult was narrowing my subject matter. I divided my research project into three sections: Why do students listen to music?, what is the most popular genre? and is there a solution? This allowed me to highlight important findings, compare these to secondary sources and present a possible solution.

I’m satisfied with my work throughout this semester and while I recognise the ways in which I could have improved my work, I think I created a well-written and useful piece of academic writing that has helped me learn about my studying habits and will hopefully be of benefit to those who read it.

Frank Tremain.