By: Claudia Romo, Heidy Martinez, Ara Velazquez

By: Claudia Romo, Heidy Martinez, Ara Velazquez

Introduction With so many genres of music, how can we know which one is at the top and most listened to? There are music charts, top 100 playlists, itunes lists and so on to keep track. How do we know they are totally random samples? After our final project is completed, we will come to the conclusion of what genre of music is most popular among Royal High School students. We quickly decided on the topic together. Music is part of an individual s life some way or another. Music is all around us. Every person develops their own taste of music and it can say a lot about a person. There s a saying that goes like this, You are what you listen to. Music impacts our life mentally, physically, and even spiritually. Not only will we know that genre of music is most popular but we will also possibly figure out for ourselves if music affects a person s mood. Now a days listening to music is just a simple click away or is contained within our phones and portable music devices. Our high school currently is enrolling about 2,110 students. Surveying each student will take quite a bit of time. Instead we will survey a certain amount of number of students within the grades. We created questions where the survey taker will evaluate themselves more in depth. Our random sampling will take place at the quad during lunch time where most of the activity happens. With the students approval we will hand them a slip with the five questions our group formulated. The challenge will be to survey exactly 20 students per grade to make up 80 random samples overall with the ratio of male/female equal. Once we collect all of our data we will make a distinctive graph for each question. Our group will analyze the data and come up with our own conclusions.

Research Summary Music throughout the years has evolved dramatically. Trace back to 50,000 years ago in Africa, tribes would make beats that later would change to little jingle that people would dance to. Fast forward to 4,000 years later in Europe, we learn that one of the oldest songs to ever exist was written in cuneiform and involved the use of Pythagorean tuning of the diatonic scale. As from that stage of the world and time, music then entered a new period in time, the Biblical period. Music slowly progressed from sounds to actual music that included words and beats. People found music as an escape from reality, a safe haven from their problems because songs make a personal connection with people. In the world we live today, music has a big influence. In a way music has shaped society. For example, a large percentage of teenagers listen to music that promotes drugs, violence, and bad habits. Music teaches young adults through song lyrics all these inappropriate actions are perfectly okay. But we should also take into consideration that when young adults are in a slump, music provides a security blanket from the world or issue they are trying to battle, it can be a personal psychologist. Studies have shown that music connects very well with young adults who are in the search of their own personal identity. Music provides a positive and negative influence on the young society; it s just up to adolescents to figure out how music will play a role in their everyday life. The impact music has on adolescents is incredible. A study has shown that teenagers on average listen to 2.5 hours of music per day. In a week that is 17.5 hours, in a month that is 75 hours of music, and in a year it s 912.5 hours of music. All those hours of listening to music can affect the mood of one person. A research has said that listening to music can raise or reinforce a person s mood and lead to a greater quality of life. You may be asking how one can reach

personal happiness, simply by listening to upbeat music. Or when people were in a frustrated mood, they were asked to listen to angry music versus joyful or relaxing music, the outcome resulted in angry music because people could relate very well with the angry music due to the tone and lyrics the song stated. Music can make any situation better. For instance, a lot of teenagers can relate when a special event comes up like formal or prom or before a sporting event, a lot listen to music that pumps them up, and gets their adrenaline pumping. Their moods skyrocket and their happiness is what is most important.

Data Collection The method we used to select our sample was a personal intercept survey questionnaire. We gave the survey takers strips of paper that had questions like what s their favorite genre, how often they listen to music, what s their way of listening to music, can they go a day without listening to music, and if music affects their mood. Our target population was Royal high school students. We wanted a random sample of 80 students. To keep our data unbiased, we decided the ratio of males and females should be equal. We also wanted the sample to be evenly distributed amongst each of the grade levels. To achieve this goal, we gave out 20 survey questionnaires per grade level, 10 for females and 10 for males. Our group stood in the quad to ask random students who walked by to take our survey. We kept in mind that we can only pass out 20 surveys for grade level. Our biggest shortcoming was that most of the survey takers would skip the top portion of our survey asking them for their grade and if they were a male or female. We had to remind the many different survey takers to make sure that they wrote down their grade. Another shortcoming was that some survey takers would ask if they could circle more than one genre of music. We didn t specify to circle one, but we assumed that the students would just circle their most favorite. So, that was a fault on our part. The last of our struggles, was we that we wanted to split up to cover more ground. We quickly realized after that it was even harder to keep track of all the data. It was much more efficient to stay together as a group than to go out individually. During our data collecting, we stumbled upon many different reactions when students were taking our survey. Most people were excited to take the survey while others didn t show much interest. Some students finished the survey pretty quickly and the questions came very natural to them. All in all, the survey did the job and helped us meet our goal.

Our Survey Questions Grade: Male or Female 1. What s your favorite genre of music? Pop Hip Hop Rock Alternative EDM Country Other: 2. Can you go a day without listening to your music? Yes or No 3. Does music affect your mood? Yes or No 4. What s your way of listening to music? (ex. Radio, itunes, Pandora, etc.) 5. How often do you listen to music in a day? (in hours)

Data Analysis We asked random students on campus from each grade level to choose from 7 different genres; Pop, Hip Hop, Rock, Alternative, EDM, Country, and Other. From our SRS of 80 students we concluded that Hip Hop is the most popular genre amongst Royal High School students. We used a pie chart to show our data collection. Our pie chart shows that 32% of Royal High Students prefer to listen to Hip Hop. The least popular genre was Other, which included Bachata, Jazz, and Gospel music, coming in with 4%. Our second question in our survey asked the student if they could go a day without listening to their music. 57 out of the 80 students we surveyed answered no. Our graph shows that 71% of the students at Royal High school cannot go a day without listening to their own music. You can see in the graph the huge gap between the yes and no students. Our next question we asked students was if music affected their mood. 71 out of the 80 students we surveyed answered yes, and only 9 students out of the 80 answered no. To show the results we used a bar graph to distinguish the differences. We assume that music affects peoples mood because music influences people s everyday thoughts. In question 4 we used a table with numbers to show that itunes was the most popular way of listening to music. Answer options varied from Pandora, itunes, Radio, YouTube, Soundcloud, to old school records. In question 5 we asked in hours how long did they listen to music, the majority of people answered 2 to 3 hours. We used a bar graph to show the data; it didn t surprise us as much because we found a study that proved that people listen to 2 to 3 hours of music each day. Our conclusion was that Hip-Hop was the genre that affects Royal High School students mood the most. We believe this statement is true because living in the west coast there is more of a variety and influence of Hip Hop. Due to the fact that we are literally an hour away from Los

Angeles/ Hollywood (the entertainment capital of the world), many various musicians perform near us. For example in the Hollywood Bowl, Staples Center, Club Nokia, and the closest venue to Simi Valley is The Majestic Ventura Theater; where Hip Hop artists such as ScHoolboy Q has performed. If you lived in the Midwest or south, most likely a different genre like Country or Rock would be most popular. We also learned from the data that music plays a very important role in a teenager s life. Due to the fact that a lot of Royal High School students listen to 2+ hours of music each day, we came to the realization that music in a way is a person s safe haven when they are down because they can very much relate with the lyrics, it s a support they feel. When we learned that the majority of the sample cannot go a day without listening to music proves that music is a form of therapy to teenagers. Music actives every region of the brain and affects every body function. Different types of music bring upon different types of moods, it can make the brain extremely active or relaxed. If you were to ask us what genre was the most popular at the beginning of our project, we would not have believed the outcome. This project has taught us that the more data you collect the more accurate of an answer you will produce. In doing this experiment we found out that a lot of students do listen to music a lot. For that reason, we discovered that music does have a big impact on a person s mood here at Royal high school. Our group researched and discovered that people who listen to music a couple hours a day were happier, more focused, and had improved verbal memory compared to those who did not listen to music on a daily basis.

# of Students EDM 5% Other 4% Country 15% Pop 11% Alternative 15% Hip Hop 32% Rock 18% Can you go a day without listening to your music? Does music affect your mood? 80 60 40 20 0 A Day Without Music Yes 23 71 No 57 9 Music Affects Your Mood

60 50 40 48 30 20 10 0 35 13 15 9 0-1 Hrs 2-3 Hrs 4-5 Hrs 6-13 Hrs All Day # of Students

Work s Cited Page Boothby, Susan, ed. How Music Affects Our Moods. N.p.: n.p., 2013. Web. 20 May 2014. <http://www.healthline.com/health-news/mental-listening-to-music-lifts-or-reinforcesmood-051713>. Parker-Pop, Tara. Under The Influence of. Music? New York: New York Times, 2008. Web. 20 May 2014. <http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/under-the-influence-ofmusic/>. History of Music. N.p.: Wikipedia, 2014. Web. 20 May 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/history_of_music>.

Ara s Conclusion In the project, You Are What You Listen To, our objective as a group was to find out what genre was most popular amongst Royal High School students and if music affected their mood. As individuals we all guessed what genre would be more popular, me and Claudia guessed that Pop would have the greater popularity against others whereas Heidy believed that Rock would be more popular. When we finished our SRS of 80 students, to our surprise we learned that Hip-Hop was the winner. To show the differences in genres we supplied graphs and pie charts to show the huge gap between genres. When we asked the question if music affected their mood, out of the 80 students, 71 students answered yes and only 8 answered no. It did not surprise me at all because music plays a very important role in teenagers everyday life. When asked how many hours in a day they listen to music 35 students answered 2 to 3 hours. The results did not shock me at all because I know that a study has proven that a lot of teenagers listen to music on average of 2 to 3 hours a day so the influence music has on young adults is astounding to me. Doing this project has taught me how doing a sampling of more students, you get a more accurate number of the information you need to answer a question. At first we wanted to get a sampling of just 10 students from each grade but we learned that we didn t want to be biased and get as fixed result so we decided to make it fairer and ask 10 guys and 10 girls from each grade to be more precise, not asking any of our friends, our aim was to get a variety of answers from different kids. It shocked me to realize that many kids prefer to listen to hip-hop. I would have thought that Pop would be more popular, but Pop came in 5 th place, not even 2 nd which I thought was a bit bizarre considering that Pop is a pretty popular genre worldwide. I also learned that

music is a part of a teenager s life and in a way it influences our thoughts when we are alone or comforts us in our time of need.

Claudia s Conclusion With the CP Statistics final project I was able to have hands on experience on the process of giving out a survey our group created. We wanted to know what genre of music is the most popular within the student population of Royal High School. We also wanted to know if music affected their moods. We created a binomial and quantitative question in order to get our answer. The genres ranged from Hip-Hop, Pop, Country, EDM, Rock, Alternative, and Other. As our group was formulating questions for the survey I made a prediction that Pop music was going to be the most favorite genre among the Royal High School student population. I also made a prediction that most of the students mood does get affected by music. In the beginning I thought it would have been an easy and uninteresting task. I was completely wrong. Our procedure was to collect random data of a certain number of students per grade. In my mind I knew it was going to be the biggest challenge. The process of giving out surveys was a negative and positive experience. Some people didn t want to participate while others seemed excited to take our survey. As I was looking over our samples it was clear that pop wasn t going to be the most favorite genre out of the seven other choices we provided. It turns out that hip-hop was the most popular genre of music. The least popular genre was other which the students had the choice to select if our provided answers didn t apply to them. In a way the results surprised me, but in another way they didn t. I believe the age population does have a huge impact in the music tastes. Another reason why I believe hip-hop was the most popular is because of the area we live in. Our group organized the data in pie graphs, tables, and bar graphs. Overall, it was a fun experience. It was interesting because we were able to pick our own topic and in the end the results surprised me.

Heidy s Conclusion Our group decided to do what type of music influences student s mood the most. The questions our survey first asked was, what type of genre was most favorited amongst Royal High School students. We had options like Pop, Rock, Hip Hop, Alternative, EDM, Country, and Other. My hypothesis was that Rock music was going to be the most popular genre. The most popular genre ended up being Hip Hop. Another question asked the survey taker if they can go a day without listening to their own music. The majority said no, leaving the results at 71% no and 29% yes. My hypothesis for the third question was that students would answer yes to music affecting their mood. I was correct; my personal experiences caused me to agree that music impacts people s emotions. With all the new apps and technology there are many ways to listen to music. Our fourth question asked what their way of listening to music was. There were various answers such as radio, Pandora, itunes, Spotify, itunes Radio, YouTube, and Soundcloud. I listen to my itunes library all the time so that was my hypothesis for this question. Indeed, itunes did come in first with 46% of our population answering itunes. The last question in our survey asked how many hours in a day do they listen to music. My guess was around 2 hours. The question s answers ranged from 0 to 24. The hours that were chosen the most was between two to three hours in a day. Overall, the answers we received were very helpful to complete our analysis. While doing this project, I learned that there can be many errors while giving out surveys. Our group experienced this when we couldn t keep everything organized when we split up to cover more ground. Next time, I know to figure everything out and keeping the struggles in mind so we don t make the same mistakes.