Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor for my project, Professor
Greg Davis for being awesome! You were so helpful through out this entire process and I
can’t imagine having anyone else in your position. Also, thank you for being an amazing
teacher. You have taught me so much over my four years and I am so glad I could
complete my final project here at Cal U with you!
Secondly, I would like to thank my parents for not only being my parents but
making me the person I am today. I would not be here at Cal U studying music, my
passion, if it wasn’t for your support an encouragement over the past twenty-two years. I
hope you guys feel just as proud of yourselves as I do in myself because this is just as
much your success as it is mine. I love you both!
Lastly, I would like to thank my roommate and best friend, Allison Killen, for
being exactly who she is. You are someone I never thought I would find and feel so sad
to be leaving here soon. You are a sister and I could never ask anything more from you.
Thank you for being there to help me keep my sanity during this whole process!

Abstract
The purpose of a white noise machine is to help the brain mask or eliminate other
distracting noises. Similar to a fan, it works by playing a range of frequencies all at once
creating a whooshing noise. Environmental noises are the noises that you hear every day.
The difference between the two is white noise is a constant flow of noise while
environmental noise can vary in sound source and volume. For my experiment, I wanted
to test to see if either white noise or silence had an effect on students enrolled in a fouryear college and over the age of eighteen. Twenty-seven college students were put in
three groups and they each took the same multiplication test. The first group was
considered the silence group. They took the test with earplugs in so they were in
complete silence. The second group was the white noise group. They took the test while a
white noise machine was playing in the background. The last group was the
environmental group. They took the test with no assistant of noise or silencers. They were
put in what is considered a typical test-taking situation. All twenty-seven participants also
completed a fourteen-question questionnaire. The results were inconclusive due to the
lack of participants.

Keywords: music, white noise, environment, test, student, scores

Elizabeth Brueggeman
Commercial Music Technology Major

Committee Members:
Advisor: Greg Davis
Second Reader: Ryan Sittler
HAB Member: Justin Hacket

Keywords: music, white noise, environment, test, student, scores

Table of Contents

The Impact of Noise on the Brain ....................................................................................... 1
Testing the Effects of Silence and White Noise on Test Scores ......................................... 8
References ......................................................................................................................... 16
Appendices ........................................................................................................................ 18
Appendix A-IRB Approval ................................................................................... 18
Appendix B-Consent Form ................................................................................... 19
Appendix C-Multiplication Test ........................................................................... 21
Appendix D-Test Results ...................................................................................... 22
Appendix E-Questionnaire ................................................................................... 23
Appendix F-Questionnaire Results ....................................................................... 24

1
The Impact of Noise on the Brain
American comedy writer, Robert Orben, once said, “Noise pollution is a relative
thing. In a city, it’s a jet plane taking off. In a monastery, it’s a pen that scratches.” Noise
is everywhere. Whether noise is constantly in a person’s life or whether a person only
hears silence. Noise has an effect on everyone. The impact will be different depending on
what the noise is and who the person is. A person who plays an instrument may do better
in math than someone who prefers to sit in silence. Each person’s brain is unique and will
be affected differently. Researchers over the years have looked at the effects of different
noises on the brain and how it develops and performs. From classical music to general
classroom noise to white noise, researchers have been able to get a general idea of how
noise impacts the brain.
Background
I got my idea for my research project from personal experience. I live in a noisy
area and I use a white noise machine at night to help mask those distracting sounds so I
can fall asleep. I wanted to look at the effect of not only of adding white noise to a test
scenario but removing all noise and having students take a test in complete silence. I
decided to go with a silence group to have something the complete opposite of the white
noise group. A group with a reduction of noise instead of the introduction of noise. The
research questions for my project would be:
RQ1: How does adding white noise to a classroom affect college student’s test
scores?
RQ2: How does removing noise from a classroom affect college student’s test
scores?

2
Going off this idea, I then decided to go with adding a control group made up of
environmental noise because I wanted group that had no addition or reduction of noise.
Environmental noise is noise a person would hear in their everyday life. This can be jet
planes, trains, people yelling from a far or someone dropping a pen. Environmental noise
is random and sporadic. White noise is sound made up of a lot of different frequencies all
presented at the same amplitude to create a sound similar to a fan or the sound a person
hears in an airplane. The difference between the two is white noise has a consistent
volume while environmental noise can have random volumes at random times. Originally
my project was going to be testing the effect of environmental noise and white noise on
test scores with the silence group as my control group but I switched the environmental
group to my control group near the end as it made more sense being there wasn’t and
introduction of new noise or a reduction of noise.
Using this information, the experiment would consist of having college students
some kind of test. I decided to go with college students because researchers like Dockrell
and Shield (2006) along with Soderlund, Sikstrom, Loftesnes and Sonuga-Barke (2010)
have used elementary school children as their sample base and I wanted to take a look at
a different age group. College students would also be a convenient sample group. The
students would take a one-minute fifty-question multiplication test in the three different
noise environments. I elected to go with a multiplication test because I wanted the test to
be as fair as possible and while doing research I had noticed that no one else was using
math and multiplication for their experiments. I had also been a part of a study about two
years ago and the researcher used a trivia based test and I didn’t know most of the
answers. I felt like my results for the trivia test ended up detracting for the researcher’s

3
overall results. I choose doing a multiplication test because it’s not only taught in schools
but there is one set of answers. The results of the test would then be analyzed.
The participants would also fill out a questionnaire. I decided to have them also
fill out a questionnaire because I wanted to see if I could find any other connections
between higher test scores and the results of the questionnaire. I came up with the
questions by researching different demographic questions from the sites
www.snapsurveys.com and www.surveymonkey.com. I then came up with questions that
best fit my study and purpose.
“The Mozart Effect”
The original idea behind how music and noise impacts how we can better learn
and become smarter comes from a theory called “The Mozart Effect”. That theory came
from a research study conducted in 1993. Rauscher, Shaw and Ky (1995) performed a
behavioral experiment which showed that listening to a Mozart piano sonata produced
significant short-term enhancement of spatial-temporal reasoning in college students. In
the study, 79 students participated for five consecutive days.
They issued all students 16 Paper Folding and Cutting (PF&C) items on the first
day of the experiment and then divided them into three groups with equivalent abilities.
They also issued 16 short-term memory items. Each PF&C item was projected for 1 min.
On days 2- 4, the three groups were separated, and then participated as follows: On each
day, the Silence group sat in silence for 10 min and were then tested with 16 new PF&C
items; the Mozart group listened to 10 min of Mozart's Sonata K. 448 and were tested
with the same 16 PF&C items as the Silence group. The Mixed group listened to 10 min
of something different every day. On Day 2 they heard a minimalist work by Philip

4
Glass; on Day 3 they heard an audio-taped story; and on Day 4 they heard a dance
(trance) piece. They were tested on the same PF&C items as the other groups after each
of these conditions. On day 5, the Mixed group was divided into two new groups with
equal means and distributions, based on their day 1 memory items. The two groups were
separated; one listened to the same Mozart Sonata, and the other group heard nothing.
Immediately afterwards, they issued both groups the same 16 new memory items, which
were difficult to memorize using a rhythmic pattern. Each was presented for 5 sec and the
students were to write down what they remembered in the correct order.
The Mozart group attained the highest scores on days 3-5, but the Silence and
Mozart groups did not differ significantly on days 3, 4 or 5. The Mixed group's scores
remained significantly below those of the other groups. The immediate improvement of
the Mozart group's scores was due to listening to the music, whereas the improvement of
the Silence group's scores was probably the outcome of a learning curve. These results
have not been able to be reproduced since.
Primary School Children and Classroom Noise
While classical music was a major focus of research experiments relating to
learning and brain developments, others had decided to go a different direction. Some
researchers decided to look at how general noises and sound impact the brain and the
learning process. A study, performed by Dockrell and Shield (2006), explored the effects
of typical classroom noise on the performance of primary school children. They used a
series of literacy and speed tasks to do so.
They had primary school students, with an average age of eight and a half years
old, participate. The students came from six classes from four different primary schools.

5
Of those participants, sixty-seven were boys and ninety-one with girls. During the testing,
there was three different groups and ways the noise was presented: typical quiet
classroom, noise by children alone, noise by children plus environmental noise. All the
children had to complete a total of five tests: an AH4 ability test, a verbal reading test, a
verbal spelling test, a non-verbal information processing test, and an arithmetic test.
The results showed that during the verbal tests, the kids in noise by children
environment did better than the kids in a quiet environment or kids in a noise by children
and environmental noise environment. The results from the non-verbal tests showed that
the kids in the noise by children and environmental noise environment did better than the
kids in the noise by children environment and the quiet environment.
White Noise and the Brain
As stated before, researchers have decided to go a different direction from
music’s effects on the brain and share their own take on the subject. Some researchers
looked at the effects of white noise. Rausch, Bauch and Bunzeck (2014) discussed the
impact of white noise on learning when stimulating certain parts of the brain. They said
in neural systems, information processing can be facilitated by adding an optimal level of
white noise.
“The information processing approach is based on a number of assumptions,
including: (1) information made available by the environment is processed by a
series of processing systems (e.g. attention, perception, short-term memory); (2)
these processing systems transform or alter the information in systematic ways;
(3) the aim of research is to specify the processes and structures that underlie

6
cognitive performance; (4) information processing in humans resembles that in
computers.” (McLeod, 2008, para. 4)
Although this phenomenon, the so-called stochastic resonance, has traditionally
been linked with perception, recent evidence indicates that white noise may also exert
positive effects on cognitive functions, such as learning and memory. They had tested the
hypothesis that auditory white noise, when presented during the encoding of scene
images, enhances subsequent recognition memory performance. In an fMRI experiment,
white noise selectively enhances stimulus-driven phasic activity in the substantia nigra/
ventral tegmental area and auditory cortex. Moreover, it induces stronger connectivity
between substantia nigra/ ventral tegmental area and right STS, which, in addition,
exhibited a positive correlation with subsequent memory improvement by white noise.
Their results suggested that the white noise could be particularly useful to facilitate
learning conditions where changes of the mesolimbic system are casually related to
memory deficits including healthy and pathological aging.
Inattentive School Children and White Noise
While the previous study focused more on the average person, Soderlund,
Sikstrom, Loftesnes and Sonuga-Barke (2010) completed a research study they did back
in 2010 that focused on some effects of white noise on attentive and inattentive school
children. They predicted that inattentive children would be enhanced by adding
background white noise while attentive children’s performance would deteriorate. They
based this prediction on a computational model that says stochastic resonance and
dopamine related internal noise postulates that a moderate amount of auditive noise
benefit individuals in hypodopaminergic states.

7
In their study they used fifty-one participants age eleven to twelve from two
classes of children. Twenty-six were girls and twenty-five were boys. Participants were
divided into two groups after their attention abilities were assessed by teachers using a
seven-point Likert scale. The assessment scale is the same as that used in the longitudinal
research program Individual Development and Adaptation. Participants that scored high
(6 or 7 - severe problems in the class room) on inattention where assigned to the
inattentive group. This group consisted of 10 participants, 6 of them also scored high on
hyperactivity as evaluated by the teachers. The comparison group comprised the
remaining 41 children that scored 5 or lower at the scale and were assessed as average- or
highly attentive.
All participants undertook a verbal episodic recall test. The to-be-remembered
(TBR) items consisted of 96 sentences divided into 8 separate lists with 12 verb-noun
sentences in each list. Each sentence consisted of a unique verb and a unique noun. The
sentences were placed in random order. List-order and condition-order (no noise vs.
noise) were counterbalanced and noise was present on every second list. All to-beremembered sentences were recorded on a CD. A new item was read every 9th second.
The sentences were read in both the low noise and the high noise condition. The
participants were tested individually in a room during the school day. The test lasted for
about 45 minutes including the presentation of instructions. Before starting the
experiment, two practice sentences were presented. The results showed that the
inattentive children performed better in the high rather than the low noise condition and
the normally attentive group did the opposite.

8
The Negative Effect of Noise Introduction
In the short-run, an experiment may look successful when performed in one day
or a matter of a couple days, but there are side-effects of introducing noise into any
situation. When performing these experiments, research on long-term effects must be
taken into consideration. Klatte, Bergstrom and Lachmann (2013) provide an overview of
research concerning both acute and chronic effects of exposure to noise on children’s
cognitive performance. They said that children’s speech perception is more impaired than
adults by unfavorable listening conditions. The ability to recognize speech under
conditions of noise or noise combined with reverberation improves until the teenage
years. Non-auditory tasks such as short-term memory, reading and writing are also
impaired by noise. Depending on the nature of the tasks and sounds, these impairments
may result from specific interference with perceptual and cognitive processes involved in
the focal task, and/or from a more general attention capture process. Concerning chronic
effects, despite inconsistencies within and across studies, the available evidence indicates
that enduring exposure to environmental noise may affect children’s cognitive
development.

Testing the Effects of Silence and White Noise on Test Scores
Different types of noise affects the brain in their own way. Even from a very
young age, noise has the ability to affect the brain before a child is even born. White
noise has also proven to make an impact on the human brain. White noise can help an
inattentive child be able to focus, but noise isn’t always beneficial. Speech perception,
memory, perceptual and cognitive processing can be impaired over time. Certain aspects,

9
including volume and type of noise, need to be taken into consideration before moving
forward with an experiment involving noise. Not done correctly, a researcher can not
only receive false results but can also injure their subjects as well. Noise can be very
beneficial to learning and development when listened to in the right manner.

Method
Before starting any recruiting or experimenting, I needed submit my project
proposal for approval to work with human subjects. I completed this process over
approximately a three-month period. After receiving approval from California University
of Pennsylvania’s Institutional Review Board (see Appendix A for full approval letter), I
moved forward with the recruitment of my participants.
Participants
For my study, thirty participants were required for each group. This equaled to
ninety participants in total. (Pallant as cited in Sittler, 2015, p.35-36) The qualifications
to participate in the study were limited. The participants only needed to be over the age of
eighteen and enrolled ful-time in a four-year college or university. The requirements were
small in order to get the most accurate view of how the noise environments affected the
everyday college student.
Participants were recruited in a variety of ways over a period of four weeks. The
recruitment methods were:
▪

Emailing Cal U Honors students, Commercial Music Technology students,
and students from current and past classes.

▪

Having willing teachers mention my study during their classes.

10
▪

Making announcements to classes and major’s meeting.

▪

Sent around a sign-up sheet to classes and meetings.

Recruitment resulted with twenty-nine students, of which only twenty-seven participated
in the actual experiment.
Experiment Design
The participants were divided into three groups, but all took the exact same test.
The groups were called the control group, the silence group and the white noise group.
The test was a fifty-question multiplication test that was to be completed to the best of
their ability in one minute. It was created using an online generator called Basic
Multiplication Worksheet Generator. The questions and answers can be seen in Appendix
C. The control group was made up of ten participants. They took the test in what may be
considered a normal testing environment. It was quiet, but the participants could hear the
other participants working along with papers shuffling and other objects in the room
being moved. The silence group was made up of nine participants. In order to make sure
they were in almost complete silence, they wore earplugs. The earplugs were Mack’s
Ultra Soft Foam Earplugs. They have a thirty-two-decibel noise reduction rating. The
final group was the white noise group. The group was made of eight participants. They
took the test while listening a Homedics Sound Spa 2000 White Noise machine. The
white noise machine was placed at the front of the classroom on a stool so it would be at
almost eye-level. During testing, the decibel level of the white noise machine was
recorded at 58.9 dB at the front of the classroom, 57.6 dB in the middle of the classroom
and 55.9 dB at the back of the classroom. The participants were also given a

11
questionnaire to fill out after taking the test. (see Appendix E for questionnaire
questions).
Experiment Execution
The experiment was completed over a course of two weeks. The dates were
chosen based on the times the participants were available. In the end, a total of five
sessions were given. Each session started off with handing out and reading aloud the
consent form (see Appendix B for copy of the consent form). After, the consent forms
were signed by the participants and collected. The participants would take the
multiplication test. During that time, the countdown clock was displayed on a projector at
the front of the classroom. After the test was completed, the participants proceeded to fill
out the questionnaire at their own leisure. Once completed, the experiment session was
over. Each session was different and modified depending on which noise group was
participating at the time. For the silence group, participants put their earplugs in before
the multiplication test was started and removed the earplugs after the test was completed.
For the white noise group, participants were exposed to white noise from the moment
they walked in the room at a lower volume. The white noise machine was then turned up
to the level provided earlier before taking the multiplication test and completely turned
off after the test was completed. The control group had no special modifications.
Results
The results of both the multiplication test and questions were calculated to answer
the following research questions:
RQ1: How does adding white noise to a classroom affect college student’s test
scores?

12
RQ2: How does removing noise from a classroom affect college student’s test
scores?
The results of the questionnaire were not useful due to the fact that the demographics of
my participants were limited. The majority of my participant pool was either female or
Caucasian. I also had a mixture of ages that ranged from eighteen years old to twenty-two
years old. Most of my participants also live in Pennsylvania but two participants were
from Maryland, one was from New York and one was from Ohio. The majority of my
participants (93%) do not use a white noise machine on a daily basis either. With the lack
of equality of my participants, it was hard to come up with a definite conclusion for my
questionnaire results.
Multiplication Test
The results of the multiplication test were inconclusive due to the fact I had an
inadequate participant sample size resulting any test score to be rendered statistically
insignificant. After calculating the individual scores, the mean, median, mode and
standard deviation were calculated. The results are shown below and can also be found in
Appendix D:

Mean

Median

Mode

SD

Silence Group-

28.44

34

No Mode

11.87551

Control Group-

30.3

29.5

No Mode

11.1858

White Noise Group-

26.75

23

20

10.43004

13
Limitations and Conclusion
Going through this process, I was fairly confident about everything I was doing
and how I was executing it. In the end, completing the whole process and presenting my
work and findings made me realize that I still have a lot more to learn from for the next
time I plan on completing a research project like this. I found a few limitations to my
experiment that, if I could go back and correct them, my project may have come out with
different results.
Questionnaire
The results of the questionnaire proved to be inconclusive for the same reasons as
the results of the multiplication test. No connection between demographics and the results
of the multiplication test were found. The results of the questionnaire can be seen in
Tables 1 thru 14 in Appendix F.
White Noise Machine
There were some limitations concerning the white noise machine itself. One
limitation could be where I placed the white noise machine itself. I had chosen to place
the white noise machine at the front of the classroom. By doing this the white noise
machine was louder to the participants sitting at the front of the classroom and quieter to
the participants sitting at the back of the classroom. By doing so, the participants were
not in the same white noise environment from the front of the classroom to the back of
the classroom. I could have fixed this by moving the white noise machine to the center of
the classroom and arranging the seats in a circle with the participants facing the white
noise machine. This way the participants received an equal amount of sound from the
white noise machine to their ears. I, also, was playing the white noise machine from the

14
moment the participants walked through the door and at a different volume than what the
participants would take the test at. This could pose a problem because the participants
who wore earplugs were not asked to come into the testing room with the earplugs
already in. This gives time for the white noise participant to adjust and the earplug
participants no time to adjust.
Multiplication Test
There are some limitations for using a multiplication test. There is the possibility
that the participant was either never taught basic multiplication drills, doesn’t
automatically know them or doesn’t remember them at all. Another possibility would
include that taking the test in one minute would result in lower scores due to the
participant feeling pressure to finish or experiencing a form of test anxiety. “This stress
has been associated with academic anxiety, financial burden, physical factors such as
sleep deprivation, and interpersonal issues.” (Vitaliano et al., 1984; Parkerson et al.,
1990; Henning et al., 1998; Murphy et al., 2009 as cited in Schwartz et al., 2014, p. 518)
Another problem that could possibly change the results was I had each participant only
take the test one time. I chose to have one control group to compare my results to and two
other groups with a changed factor. The problem with doing it this way could be that you
cannot gage how well a participant will perform in the first place and exactly what they
know. Instead what I could have done was to have the participants take the test in the
control setting and then take the test again, but with the questions mixed up, in one of the
other noise group settings. Doing it this way gives an individualized gage for how much
better or how much worse they would do in those noise settings.

15
Other Limitations
Other limitations to the study was that the participants that used earplugs were not
properly shown how to use and insert the earplugs at the time. This could result in a
lower effectiveness or no effectiveness from the earplugs making it possible for each
participant to be experiencing a different noise environment. Another limitation was that
I didn’t give each participant a hearing test during the participant recruitment phase. The
problem that this could pose is that the participants could have had lower hearing ability
or even be legally deaf at the time of the experiment. This could result in certain
participants not hearing the white noise machine or environmental noise properly. This
will cause each participant to have taken the test in different hearing environments.
Experiment Execution
Even though the execution of the experiment didn’t go as plan. I was very
shocked with how the results turned out. Considering the nature of white noise, I figured
that the white noise would be able to help mask out any distractions that a student may
encounter and in turn help the student to perform better. In the end, it appears to have
done the opposite. A possible explanation could be that, unless you use white noise
frequently, the introduction of new noise and, specifically, white noise can be the
distraction itself instead of the solution. In the end, it was very hard to determine just how
accurate those results were.
Conclusion
Looking back, I wish things would have turned out differently when it came to the
number of participants I was able to recruit. I think at the time, I presumed that people
were willing to participate for anything the moment they saw the opportunity and in turn

16
I didn’t prepare well enough for just how much recruiting I would have to do. If I could
change anything, I would have added an incentive for my participants. If I had a grant, I
would have given each participant a gift card, but since I did not I still would have
provided food or snacks at each session. One day I hope that I will be able to go back and
redo this study and do it the justice it deserves.

References
DeFranzo, S. E. (2012, March 13). 5 examples of survey demographic questions.
Retrieved from https://www.snapsurveys.com/blog/5-survey-demographicquestion-examples/
Survey Monkey. (2018). Demographic surveys: Questions and examples | survey
monkey. Retrieved from https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/demographicsurvey/
Dockrell, J.E. & Shield, B.M. (2006). Acoustical barriers in classrooms: The impact of
noise on performance in the classroom. British Educational Research Journal,
(3), 509. doi:10.1080/01411920600635494
Klatte, M., Bergstrom, K. & Lachmann, T. (2013). Does noise affect learning? A short
review on noise effects on cognitive performance in children. Frontiers in
Psychology, Vol 4, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00578/full
McLeod, S. A. (2008). Information processing | simply psychology. Retrieved from
https://www.simplypsychology.org/information-processing.html
Rausch, V. H., Bauch, E. M., & Bunzeck, N. (2014). White noise improves learning by
modulating activity in dopaminergic midbrain regions and right superior temporal

17
sulcus. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 26(7), 1469-1480.
doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00537
Rauscher, F. H., Shaw, G. L., & Ky, K. N. (1995). Listening to Mozart enhances spatialtemporal reasoning: towards a neurophysiological basis. Neuroscience Letters,
18544-47. doi:10.1016/0304-3940(94)11221-4
Sittler, R. L. (2015). The effects of audio and gender within a 3D gaming environment on
the achievement of different educational objectives (Doctoral dissertation)
Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations.
Söderlund, G. B., Sikström, S., Loftesnes, J. M., & Sonuga-Barke, E. J. (2010). The
effects of background white noise on memory performance in inattentive school
children. Behavioral and Brain Functions, 6(1), 55. doi:10.1186/1744-9081-6-55
Schwartz, S. M., Evans, C., & Agur, A. M. (2014). Comparison of physical therapy
anatomy performance and anxiety scores in timed and untimed practical tests.
Anatomical Sciences Education, 8(6), 518-524. doi:10.1002/ase.1508

18
Appendix A
IRB Approval
Dear Ms. Brueggeman:
Please consider this email as official notification that your proposal titled "The Effects of
Environmental and White Noise on Test Scores” * (Proposal 17-014) has been approved
by the California University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board as amended with
the following stipulation(s):
-Please provide the name of the app to be used in measuring sound intensity and
the make/model of phone.
-The consent form must include a risk statement that exposure to loud noises can
be detrimental to hearing, but that this risk has been minimized by limiting the
introduced sound levels to no more than those typically encountered in
classrooms.
Once you have provided the additional information, you may immediately begin data
collection. You do not need to wait for further IRB approval. At your earliest
convenience, you must forward a copy of the changes for the Board’s records.
The effective date of the approval is 12/13/17 and the expiration date is 12/12/18. These
dates must appear on the consent form.
Please note that Federal Policy requires that you notify the IRB promptly regarding any
of the following:
(1) Any additions or changes in procedures you might wish for your study
(additions or changes must be approved by the IRB before they are implemented)
(2) Any events that affect the safety or well-being of subjects
(3) Any modifications of your study or other responses that are necessitated by
any events reported in (2).
(4) To continue your research beyond the approval expiration date of 12/12/18
you must file additional information to be considered for continuing review.
Please contact instreviewboard@cup.edu. Please notify the Board when data
collection is complete.
Regards,
Robert Skwarecki, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Chair, Institutional Review Board

*note that the project name changed after approval and testing

19
Appendix B
Consent Form
Dear Perspective [sic] Participant,
You have been invited to join a research study to look at whether or not environmental
and/or white noise helps improve test scores in a college setting*. You have been selected
because you are over the age of 18 and enrolled full-time in a four-year college. The
study will consist of you taking a one-minute multiplication test made up of fifty
questions with either silence, environmental noise or white noise in the background. You
will also be asked to fill out a questionnaire asking you about your background and other
information. Overall, the process will last approximately 10-15 minutes and will be
completed in a university classroom. There is the possible risk that exposure to loud noise
can be detrimental to hearing, but this risk has been minimized by limiting the introduced
sound levels to no more than those typically encountered in classrooms. While there is no
compensation for participating in this study, your participation will provide a greater
understanding of whether or not environmental and/or white noise has an effect on a
student’s test scores. Your participation will also help to determine if there is a better
environment for students to take tests in. If you have any questions, please contact
Researcher Elizabeth Brueggeman at bru6796@calu.edu or (513)917-0273 or Faculty
Advisor Greg Davis at davis_g@calu.edu or (724)938-5753.

I have signed the Consent Form agreeing to voluntarily participate in the study “The
Effects of Environmental and White Noise on Test Scores” that has been approved by the
California University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board. This approval is
effective 12/13/17 and expires 12/12/18. I understand that my responses to this

20
questionnaire are voluntary and that I can choose not to answer certain questions. I also
understand that I will not be identified by name in any research or publications resulting
from this study and that all records will be confidential and only accessible by Elizabeth
Brueggeman. All record will also be kept in a locked office in Gallagher Hall and kept
confidential. Furthermore, I understand that I can withdraw my consent at any time, and
for any reason, without any penalty by contacting Elizabeth Brueggeman.

First Name: _______________________________
Last Name: ________________________________

Signature: ___________________________________
Date: _______________

*note that the project name changed after approval and testing

21
Appendix C
Multiplication Test
Answer Key

2
x8
16

2
x5
10

7
x7
49

8
x8
64

4
x9
36

7
x5
35

12
x12
144

2
x12
24

9
x2
18

9
x12
108

7
x11
77

3
x3
9

6
x9
54

8
x11
88

10
x6
60

9
x9
81

12
x5
60

7
x3
21

7
x8
56

12
x7
84

3
x11
33

5
x12
60

3
x6
18

7
x9
63

2
x2
4

11
x4
44

8
x2
16

6
x4
24

8
x4
32

10
x5
50

10
x9
90

8
x5
40

3
x9
27

3
x8
24

10
x12
120

2
x10
20

2
x4
8

5
x5
25

9
x5
45

8
x3
24

6
x3
18

5
x4
20

6
x8
48

10
x11
110

12
x6
72

4
x3
12

2
x7
14

11
x6
66

10
x7
70

4
x7
28

22
Appendix D
Test Results
Scores (out of 50 points)
Silence Group-

8, 14, 18, 32, 34, 35, 36, 38, 41

Control Group-

10, 21, 22, 28, 29, 30, 33, 40, 42, 48

White Noise Group-

15, 20, 20, 21, 25, 31, 35, 47

Statistics
Mean
Silence Group-

28.44

Control Group-

30.3

White Noise Group-

26.75

Median
Silence Group-

34

Control Group-

29.5

White Noise Group-

23

Silence Group-

No Mode

Control Group-

No Mode

White Noise Group-

20

Mode

Standard Deviation
Silence Group-

11.87551

Control Group-

11.1858

White Noise Group-

10.43004

23
Appendix E
Questionnaire
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

What is your age?
What is your ethnic background?
What is your gender?
What country were you born in?
What state do you live in?
What is your religion?
Are you fluent in another language?
a. If yes, please list:
8. Do you use a white noise machine on a daily basis (night or day)?
9. Do you prefer to study in silence?
10. How many hours a day do you listen to music?
11. What is the highest level of education you have completed?
a. Are you currently a college student?
b. If yes, grad or undergrad?
c. Major:
12. Do you have any previous math experience?
a. If yes, please explain:
13. Do you know your SAT and/or ACT scores?
a. If yes, please list:
i. SAT:
ii. ACT:
14. Are you employed?
a. Part-Time or Full-Time:
b. Job Title:

24
Appendix F
Questionnaire Results
Table 1
Q1. What is your age?
Score Silence (of 9)
40-50 1- 20 yrs.
30-39

1- 19 yrs.
2- 20 yrs.
2- 22 yrs.

20-29

10-19
0-9

1- 18 yrs.
1- 19 yrs.
1- 18 yrs.

Table 2
Q2. What is your ethnicity?
Score Silence (of 9)
40-50 1- Latino
30-39

5- Caucasian

20-29
10-19

2- Caucasian

0-9

1- Female

Table 3
Q3. What is your gender?
Score Silence (of 9)
40-50 1- Male
30-39

20-29
10-19
0-9

1- Male
3- Female
1- N/A
2- Female
1- Female

Control Group (of 10)

White Noise (of 8)

1- 19 yrs.
2- 20 yrs.
1- 19 yrs.
1- 20 yrs.

1- 19 yrs.

1- 19 yrs.
2- 20 yrs.
1- 21 yrs.
1- 18 yrs.

1- 18 yrs.
2- 19 yrs.
1- 21 yrs.
1- 20 yrs.

Control Group (of 10)

White Noise (of 8)

2- Caucasian
1- Caribbean
1- Cameroonian
1- Caucasian
4- Caucasian
1- Female

1- Caucasian

Control Group (of 10)

White Noise (of 8)

1- Male
2- Female
2- Female

1- Male

4- Female
1- Female

4- Female
1- Male

2- 18 yrs.

2- Caucasian
4- Caucasian
1- Male

1- Male
1- Female

25
Table 4
Q4. What country were you born in?
Score Silence (of 9)
Control Group (of 10)
3- USA
40-50 1- USA
1- Cameroon
30-39 5- USA
20-29
10-19
0-9

2- USA
1- USA

Table 5
Q5. What state do you live in?
Score Silence (of 9)
40-50 1- PA
30-39

1- MD
1- OH
3- PA

20-29
10-19
0-9

2- PA
1- PA

Table 6
Q6. What is your religion?
Score Silence (of 9)
40-50 1- N/A

30-39

2- Agnostic
1- Jewish
1- Christian
1- Lutheran

20-29

10-19
0-9

1- Christian
1- N/A
1- N/A

White Noise (of 8)
1- USA
2- USA

1- USA
4- USA
1- USA

4- USA
1- USA

Control Group (of 10)

White Noise (of 8)

1- NY
2- PA
1- MD
1- PA

1- PA

4- PA

4- PA

1- PA

1- PA

Control Group (of 10)

White Noise (of 8)

1- Roman Catholic
1- Catholic
1- N/A
1- Catholic
1- Christian

1- Agnostic

2- Catholic
1- Agnostic
1- N/A

1- Christian
1- Catholic
1- Presbyterian
1- N/A
1- N/A

1- N/A

2- PA

1- Christian
1- Orthodox Christian

26
Table 7
Q7. Are you fluent in another language? If yes, please list:
Score Silence (of 9)
Control Group (of 10)
1- Yes (French/Creole)
40-50 1- No
30-39
20-29
10-19
0-9

5- No

2- No
1- No

2- No
2- No
4- No
1- No

Table 8
Q8. Do you use a white noise machine on a daily basis?
Score Silence (of 9)
Control Group (of 10)
2- No
40-50 1- No
30-39
20-29

5- No

10-19
0-9

2- No
1- No

1- Yes
2- No
3- No
1- Yes
1- No

Table 9
Q9. Do you prefer to study in silence?
Score Silence (of 9)
Control Group (of 10)
1- Yes
40-50 1- Maybe

30-39

3- No
1- Yes
2- Maybe

20-29
10-19
0-9

1- Yes
1- No
1- Yes

1- Maybe
1- No
1- No
1- Maybe
3- Yes
1- No
1- Yes

White Noise (of 8)
1- No
1- Yes (Serbian)
1- No
4- No
1- No

White Noise (of 8)
1- No
2- No
4- No
1- No

White Noise (of 8)
1- Yes

2- Yes

3- No
1- Yes
1- No

27
Table 10
Q10. How many hours a day do you listen to music?
Score Silence (of 9)
Control Group (of 10)
1- 3 hrs.
40-50 1- 4 hrs.

30-39

1- 12 hrs.
1- 5 hrs.
1- 4 hrs.
1- 3 hrs.
1- 2 hrs.

20-29

10-19
0-9

1- 4 hrs.
1- 3 hrs.
1- 2 hrs.

Table 11
Q11.C. What is your major?
Score Silence (of 9)
40-50 1- Social Work

30-39

3- Music Technology
1-Environmental Studies
1- Social Work

20-29

10-19

0-9

1- Middle Level Math
Education
1- Secondary EducationCommunication
1- Social Work

White Noise (of 8)
1- 3 hrs.

1- 2 hrs.
1- N/A
1- 7 hrs.
1- 4 hrs.

1- 5 hrs.
1- 3 hrs.

1- 5 hrs.
1- 4 hrs.
2- 3 hrs.
1- 6 hrs.

2- 8 hrs.
1- 2 hrs.
1- 1 hr.
1- 4 hrs.

Control Group (of 10)

White Noise (of 8)

1- Physics
1- Psychology
1- Communications
Disorders
1- Music Theater Tech.
1- Communications
Disorders
1- Childhood Education
1- Music Technology
1- Business Admin. Accounting
1- English Literature
1- Secondary English
Education

1- Music Technology

1- Engineering
1- Theater/Psychology
1- Music Technology
1- Criminal Justice
1- Psychology/Criminal
Justice/ Forensic Science
1- N/A
1- Secondary Education

28
Table 12
Q12. Do you have any previous math experience?
Score Silence (of 9)
Control Group (of 10)
3- Yes
40-50 1- Yes
30-39

5- Yes

20-29
10-19

2- Yes

0-9

1- No

Table 13
Q13. SAT and/or ACT score?
Score Silence (of 9)
40-50 1620
30-39 1830 29
1650

20-29

10-19

1120
1060

1- No
1- Yes
4- Yes

White Noise (of 8)
1- Yes
2- Yes

1- No

3- Yes
1- N/A
1- Yes

SAT ACT
Control Group (of 10)

White Noise (of 8)

1850
1590
1450
1690
1530
1510
910

26

1350
1170
1170
1660
1100
1100

24

0-9

Table 14
Q4. Are you employed?
Score Silence (of 9)
40-50 1- Yes
30-39

4- Yes
1- No

20-29
10-19
0-9

2- Yes
1- No

Control Group (of 10)

White Noise (of 8)

3- Yes

1- No

2- Yes

2- Yes

4- Yes

3- Yes
1- N/A
1- Yes

1- No