Date of Award

8-2026

Degree Type

Creative Project

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

Department

Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling

Committee Chair(s)

Kristen Rolf

Committee

Kristen Rolf

Committee

Sophia D'Agostino

Committee

Casey Clay

Abstract

The purpose of this project was to see if music playing in the background while learning essential mathematics skills would make a difference in the learning process of middle school students. For nine weeks I collected data on the scores of the special education students relearning skills they had been previously taught in a general education mathematics class. The students took a baseline assessment, then had 30-40 minutes of instruction spread across two days. They then took another assessment to see what the change was. During the lessons and assessments there was one of three conditions happening, one was silence, and two of background music playing, country music or classical music. The results showed that silence was the most effective condition. Silence was the only condition in which the grand mean of change from pre to posttest was an increase in score for all students. The project also showed a large variance in change across all conditions, but silence was by and far the winner for helping students gain mastery of the mathematical skills.

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