Effect of Instrumental music on Students’ Performance in Physics Experiments in Rongo Sub- County, Kenya.

Abstract

Listening to music while performing other tasks is a common feature in multi-tasking. Instrumental music is known to have beneficial effects to subjects while multi-tasking. This paper explores the performance of students in Physics experiments while Instrumental music is playing in the background. Quasi- experimental study design was used in this study. A control group did three experiments without Instrumental music playing in the background while an Experimental group did the same three experiments while soothing instrumental music was playing in the background. The study targeted 987 Form 3 physics students in Rongo Sub- County. Purposive sampling was used to select one school that ha a relatively large population of students taking Physics. All Form 3 students in the sampled school formed the sample of 93 took part in this study. Data was collected using instrumental music (soothing relaxation) performance tests, a questionnaire and an observation schedule. The study registered mixed results in terms of performance of the two groups. The study found no significant difference in performance of students who perform the whole experiment while instrumental music is playing in the background and those who do not. The study found no significant difference in performance of students who analysed trial data while Instrumental music is playing in the background and those who did in silence. However, there was significant difference in performance of the groups when the experimental group collected data while instrumental music played in the background with the experimental group performing better than the control group.   The study recommends use of instrumental music in a controlled manner and that more research need to be done to establish the effect of instrumental music in other science subjects