MulTiTasking (aka REAL Blog one)

Hey......again,

So in my earlier blog, it was still unclear what i would be doing for my 6 month project. I decided, that although the lactose experiment was really interesting. It didn't really pose a problem. My question would only be, What is Lactose Intolerance? I wouldn't have found a great hypothesis and what could I have concluded from it? I'll have to run it through with Ms Zhang because I have to ask her stuff about it. I actually wrote BLOG 1 on it and I've posted in intro to it at the bottom, and I may still be doing it if I can find a reasonable hypothesis so I can properly conclude my experiment. I have always questioned multitasking. Can someone really do two things at once?

This experiment will investigate if a person can pay attention to two things at once. This is only a rough method, as I may change it in the future. I really like this topic because I can play around with it. So step one is to recruit about 10 to 20 girls to do the test for me. Apparently the more people, the more accurate the result. They will bring portable headsets to listen to music to. (If they don't have one I'll just borrow some for them to use from friends with ipods). I will create 2 sets of simple maths tests (pretty simple) that will take around ten minutes for them to do. Half of the girls will do the test with their music on and the other half will do the test without their music. When everyone is finished with the first test, the groups are reversed and the test is conducted for the second time. After the test. I will ask the volunteer how they felt they did on the first test versus the second test. After marking the tests, I will record the results and the total points for test one and test two.

If it was too difficult to find enough head sets, I would conduct the test in two different rooms. One room would play background music fairly loudly (not too loud)and the other room would be quiet.

The materials for the test are well are the girls, music headsets and maths papers. I can easily obtain the materials for free, and I'll just recruit some of my friends in school. The experiment is very low cost, but is a bit time consuming. (If you consider doing tests, doing them again, and marking them time consuming). I'm still uncertain if I should conduct the experiment as a blind one. If the people knew, they might put their ipod music really, really softly so they could concentrate on the test. If this happened it would distrupt the results.

The dependent variable in the test is how many marks the people got in their test, the time it took to complete the test
The independent variable in the test is when the people do the test with music or without
The controlled Variable in the test is the number of people, the loudness of the music, and the easiness of the exam paper, time conducted

So is it...

A fair test
- There are controlled variables other than dependent and independent (listed above)
- there will be a repeat conducted the next day with a different set of people (if i can recruit more)

A reliable one
- As I said before, it will be repeated

Conducted with house hold equipment
-well I wont be using any chemicals so yes

Able to be completed in the time frame
-It will only take a couple of weeks to conduct, mark and gather the results, The time frame, 6 months is more than enough

Gives a valid conclusive result
-YAY!! it actually does, unlike my failed lactose blog. It will show whether multitasking will impact a volunteers ability to answer maths questions