Does Music Really Help Reduce

Stress in Students?
Psychology Major Project

Brittany Mitchell
PSYC1100 03
Introductory Psychology
November 5th, 2014

Table of Contents
Research Question & Hypothesis............................3
Research Study Design.....4,5
Results & Discussion...6
Reference Page...7
Self-Evaluation.8
Rubric....9
Research Data & Observations..10

Introduction
Being a student leads to high levels of stress and a common question is how can we
cope with it? Being avid music listener I tend to listen to it any chance I get, in-between
classes, during huge homework/study sessions, and after an extremely stressful day.
Something I always wondered is does it actually help? It has been proven that things like
drinking and smoking are not the best stress relieving methods but what about music?
After a stressful day can listening to music actually reduce someones stress levels or
make it worse? This is what I decided to base my project on.

Research Question &

Hypothesis
My research question is Does music really help with reducing stress in students?
And for my hypothesis, I predict that the music will help make the students feel calmer
and reduce their stress for a short period of time. I believe that its effects will only be
temporary.

Research Study Design

The type of research study I will be doing is an Experiment. To prove my hypothesis is
correct I thought this would be the best choice.

Specifics:
Independent Variable
Music
Dependent Variable
Stress
Experimental Group
Students
Confounding Variable(s)
Age
Gender
Music Genre(s)
Amount of stress in each student

Method:
For this experiment it was important to get a hold of a few students in different courses,
and with different stress levels. I decided I would get the best results if the students got
to self-select the music (choices would be decided on a date prior to the experiment).
After getting all the details in order, the plan was to get each student to sit down after a
stressful time (eg. Test, project) and get them to listen to their self-selected music. They
would be told to close their eyes and play the music, during this time, I can observe their
body language to try and get further support for my hypothesis. After five minutes, they
would be told to stop the music and be asked a series of questions about the
experience.

Questions:
How do you feel?
Do you feel as though your stress has been reduced? Yes or No?
Do you think the music you chose was a good choice to reduce stress? If said no,
ask, what genre would be better suited.
Do you usually listen to music to reduce stress? Yes or No?
Would you use listening to music to be cope with stress again? Yes or No?

Ethics:
My experiment does not violate any of the of the human ethics laws, the students in the
experiment would be well informed about what would happen and would not be in any
type of harm.

Results and Discussion

After conducting my experiment I can conclude that my hypothesis was correct, music
does in fact help reduce stress levels in students. I think a major point in my experiment
is to let the students choose what kind of music they got to listen to during the
experiment. I feel it gave them a sense of control, instead of being forced to listen to
something they may not like, or music they gave a more negative effect. My research
supports my hypothesis because it give us not only bodily proof (see observations page),
but verbal proof from the students.

I have many limitations to my study, the most important one was not having enough
participates in my study. That being my own fault for not planning ahead but if I had
more people I definitely had better result and my hypothesis could have been wrong.
Another limitation would be only trying one kind of music genre, which was selfselected. If I had done more genres like in other studies I found in my research, I could
have had more in-depth results.

Reference Page
1. Labb, Elise, et al. "Coping With Stress: The Effectiveness of Different Types of Music." Applied
Psychophysiology & Biofeedback32.3/4 (2007): 163-168. SPORTDiscus with Full Text. Web. 4
Nov. 2014.
2. Kowalski, Kathiann M. "Coping with Stress." Current Health 2, a Weekly Reader publication Sept.
2000: 6. Academic OneFile. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.
3. "Stress Management. How to Reduce, Prevent, and Cope with Stress. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-management.htm>.

Name: __________________________________

Often

Seldom

Sometimes

Contributed ideas
Listened to and respected the ideas of others
Compromised and co-operated
Took initiative when needed
Worked outside of class if necessary
Spent time browsing for appropriate material
Did my share of the workload/tasks

My two greatest strengths when working in groups are:

1. ____________________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________________

The two skills I need to work on while working in groups are:

1. ____________________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________________

Group Members Names (Clearly PRINTED & in ALPHABETICAL order by last name):
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Investigation/background research

/2

Research question stated

/1

Hypothesis stated

/1

Research design
Method identified
o If experimental: variables, groups
Method outlined
Ethical

/5

Data collection completed

/2

Data summarized/data analysis

/3

Discussion
limitations
References provided

/5
/1

Group/self-evaluations
TOTAL

/20