The relationship between listening to music and high school students' levels of mathematics anxiety and mathematics achievement.

摘要

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between listening to music prior to a mathematics lesson and students' achievement and level of mathematics anxiety.;The population consisted of 243 students at a private high school in South Florida. The control groups did not listen to music whereas the experimental groups listened to five minutes of music prior to a mathematics lesson over a nine week grading period.;Six research questions and hypotheses were formulated and tested at the .005 alpha-level. Three of the research questions related to mathematical achievement (among three different courses) and the remaining research questions related to mathematics anxiety among the same three courses.;The data generated from this quasi-experimental research design was analyzed using the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The Mathematics Anxiety Domain of the Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitudes Rating Scale (MARS) was the instrument used to measure mathematics anxiety. Common final exams were used to measure achievement.;The data indicated that there was no statistically significant relationship between mathematics anxiety and music listening for any of the courses. The data also indicated that there was no statistically significant relationship between music listening and achievement in the Geometry and Pre-Calculus courses. However, in the Algebra course, a positive relationship was determined between music listening and mathematics achievement.