Music as Motivation

Experiment Design

Music as Motivation

Rebecca McDonald

index

1. What's the question?

2. Hypothesis

3. Methods

4. What might go wrong?

5. Expected Results

6. Next time?

7. Conclusion

What Kind of Music is the Best Motivator for Exercise?

Comparing Lo-fi beats with EDM whilst working out

What's the Big Deal?

Do you listen to music when you exercise?Do you search endlessly for playlists which will get you going? Is your music just not hitting the spot? Then you'll want to find out the answer to this study!

Young man running on treadmill during sports training in a gym. Nenad Stojkovic, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Hypothesis

• Electric Dance Music (EDM) will motivate the participants better during the physical exercise compared to the Lo-fi Beats.
• I would expect that the faster tempo, dance-rhythms, and more intense dynamics of EDM will have a greater effect on motivation.
• If not? People's preferred music genre will motivate them better.

Who?

What?

PROCESS

Who are the participants?How many participants?

What music am I using in the trials?How many trials? What questions am I asking?

Confounds?

Ordering/Grouping?

What might go wrong?How might this effect the results?

How will trials be ordered?How are participants grouped?

Who?

50 gym users randomly selected from local gyms.Both male and female participants of all capabilities.

Return

What?

2 playlists:

Lo-Fi Beats Playlist

EDM Playlist

What?

1 Workout Plan

• Strength based circuit training

• Body weight only

• 5 rounds

• Targetted at full body

• 8 Trials across 2 weeks with 3 rest days in a week PER GROUP

8 Questions

What?

Rate on a scale of 1-5 how much you agree with the below statements, 1 being do not agree 5 being completely agree.

Question

I enjoyed the workout

I felt motivated during the workout

The workout was fun

I felt happy during the workout

I was excited during the workout

I remained focused during the workout

I would listen to this music again for future workouts

Return

I feel good after the workout

Grouping

Ordering

Condition A (EDM Playlist)

Random selection per trial for what playlist you will be given (EDM playlist or Lo-fi playlist)

Condition B (Lo-fi Playlist)

Double Blind

Group 1

Within Group Testing

Return

What Might Go Wrong?

05

04

03

01

02

Confounds

Confounds

Data Collection

Confounds

Confounds

Lack of variety

Injury

Other influencial factors

Progress over time

Difficulty in analysing results

Factors such as sleep, diet, age, gender, etc, can all impact someone motivation, this may impact the results of the trials.

Towards the end of the trials, participants may have adjusted to the programmme and find it easier.

Chance of having majority beginners or majority experts.

Participants facing injuries and not being able to complete the trials.

Due to nature of result collection, how can we analyse the data?

Comparing EDM and Lo-fi Music During Exercise

Results

Next time...

Participants

What would I change?

After consideration over the current experiment design, there are a few things that could be done differently next time...

Method of data collection

Next time?

Music Genres

Programme

thanks!