Music’s Effect on Employee Performance
Argosy University
PSY302 Research Methods
Abstract
The key points to this research will be to identify if in fact music has an effect on performance in the work place for employees. The focus will be placed on whether there is an increase in performance when music is introduced to workers performing normal duties in the work place. The research question formed for this study is to find out if music actually increases the performance of employees at work. The participants for this study will be a sample pulled of 14 employees of a small non-profit organization in San Bernardino California. The reason why this group was selected was number one for the participants already musically infused work environment, for the cultural similarities, ages and willingness to participate without a need for parental consent. The methodology will be interviewing and or surveys, some tools of direct measurement, archival data and observations. It may even be necessary to use some form of statistical means in graphing the outcome; but for now it does not seem necessary. The results and conclusion remain to be tracked and reported as the research progresses. Some possible implication of the study would be the incorporation of music in certain industries throughout the work place. Future work that can become evident from such research is the decrease in stress related work injuries or even possibly a reduction of psychologically related stress leave.
Key Words: Performance, Work, Employees, Music
In introduction to this particular study the hope is to identify if music can increase productivity easing the pains of the everyday fuse of production in a production driven economy. Defining the problem broadly of whether or not music increases workers performance is the problem posed that is to be defined. Studies do show that music is relevantly a factor in the work place for increasing positivity all around. What is not understood whole heartedly is whether music increases productivity in the work place which is the hypothesis.
The selected research question poses a need to use experimental research to find this out. Research designs are simply methods a researcher uses to carry out the research in mind. (Shaughnessy, 2008) What is necessary is that the researcher follows the right guideline to complete this task where another researcher can pick up where they left off and continue to delve further into the research of the question being examined. It is also necessary to choose the right method to gain the desired results. In this study the desired results can be obtained through simply describing observed behaviors and jotting or tracking occurrences of the participants as happenings transpire.
For this, the researcher is allowed to choose either basic research to gain this knowledge or applied research for the purpose of solving an existing, real life problem, which for this study a basic research is all that will be necessary for the direction of this particular research. In text, research is broken down into major categories; descriptive, correlational, and experimental design. For this study, experimental design will afford the researcher an opportunity to describe thoughts feelings and behaviors without inferring a relationship or causality to anything else. For this study, it is important the researcher define what is, and not as much as the why or how.
The methodology will be carried out through techniques such as interviewing and or surveys, some tools of direct measurement like verbal feedback, archival data and observations. It may even be necessary to use some form of statistical means in graphing the outcome. One factor of experimental research is in the manipulation of variables. In this study of music, effect on performance in the work place can be manipulated by turning on and off the music. To do this the researcher will need to utilize
