Reading and Sound

Pizzo (1981) administered the Learning Style Inventory (Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 1979) to 125 sixth-grade students attending a middle school in Western Nassau County, New York, to diagnose their preferences for acoustic instructional environments. 32 males and 32 females diagnosed as having either a preference for Quiet or a preference for Sound while learning, were assigned randomly and equally to one of two conditions, quiet and noise, for the experimental variable, acoustic environment. Thus, half the total sample was tested in an acoustic environment congruent with its diagnosed learning style preference for Sound, and half was tested in an acoustic environment incongruent with its learning style preference for Sound.

Two acoustic environments - 40 dBA + 1 S. D. (5dBa) - designated “quiet,” and 75 dBA + 1 S. D. (5dBA) - designated “noise,” were selected for this study based upon a review of the research and sound level measurements. The audio-recording tape cassette utilized in the noise experimental condition was produced from an audio-recording of classroom noise previously made while sixth grade students were engaged in a small-group instructional activity.

Subjects in both the quiet and noise conditions were administered the Comprehension subtest of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests and a semantic differential to measure their attitudes in both congruent/incongruent conditions.

A post-test-only control group design was employed; subjects diagnosed as having preferences for Sound congruent/incongruent with each of the two experimental conditions served as the control group for each condition.

A three-way analysis of variance and t-tests were used to analyze the data. The findings of this study indicate that there was a significant interaction p < .01 between the acoustic environment and individual learning style preference as revealed by the LSI. Specifically, the mean reading composition and attitude scores of the sixth graders tested in an acoustic environment congruent with their diagnosed learning style were compared with those of their peers tested in an incongruent environment. The result was a significant interaction p < .05 between learning style preference and sex. Males and females tested in acoustic environments congruent with their learning style preferences achieved significantly higher reading comprehension and attitude scores than their counterparts in incongruent acoustic environments. There was no significant interaction evidenced between acoustic environment and sex. Therefore, neither sex achieved significantly higher mean reading comprehension or attitude scores. There was no significant interaction among acoustic environment, learning style preference, and sex.