A field experiment on music preference during learning

Abstract

Empirical evidence of how background music benefits or hinders learning becomes the crux of optimizing music recommendation in educational settings. This study aims to explore how background music befits learning through an experiment in naturalistic setting. A one-week field experiment was conducted in participants’ own study places. During the experiment, participants were asked to conduct learning sessions with music in the background and collect the tracks they deemed suitable for learning using a novel mobile music app (i.e., Moody App). A set of participant-related, context-related, and music-related data were collected via the pre-experiment survey as well as the logging system and survey system of the music app. Our findings revealed some general tendencies of learners’ music preference in terms of music style, music emotion (i.e., happiness, energy), and the dynamical and timbral characteristics of music. Group-wise difference in music preference was also observed when grouping participants by certain personal factors (e.g., personality, working memory capacity, prior habit of studying with background music). In regard to the association between music characteristics and listeners’ learning experience, both affective dimensions of music emotion (i.e., happiness, energy) were found to significantly correlate with participants’ learning engagement. Though no overall effect of dynamical, rhythmic, and timbral features was observed, the timbre quality of music showed significant effect in certain condition when the potential moderating effect of task load and learners’ traits was considered. This study is expected to provide evidence for understanding the effects of background music on learning, as well as implications for designing music recommendation systems that are capable of intelligently selecting background music for facilitating learning.