Competency 2

EDCI 513 – Individual Paper – Background Music and E-Learning: A Help or a Hindrance to the Learning Process?

EDCI 513 – Individual Paper – Background Music and E-Learning: A Help or a Hindrance to the Learning Process? – In this paper, I researched the effects of music within an e-learning course to see if it would be a help or a hindrance to the learning experience. I focused on three main topics in the paper: How our memory works and the effects music have on memory, the importance of motivation in e-learning and specifically attention, and most importantly the use of background music in e-learning. After concluding my research, it was apparent that music is more of a hindrance to the learning experience than it is a help unless used in a specific manner. It was noted that music should only be used when it has a purpose that will benefit the overall course. Some suggestions mentioned were: used as cues to grab the learner’s attention, used to add emotion to the course, or used as contrasting sounds when moving from one section to the next.

It is a crucial skill for any researcher to be able to identify, describe, and analyze common research methods and practices used by professionals within their field, and it is no different for the field of instructional design. Whether they are conducting research studies, analyzing others work, or writing about new theories, it is a crucial skill for a researcher to have. In my paper, you are able to see how I have used common research techniques and examined others research techniques to answer my research questions. By conducting a literature review of multiple articles ranging on a number of topics I was able to identify what contributors might affect music in e-learning, and used the combined knowledge from each of these contributors, identified during my literature review, to make a valid argument about the use of music in e-learning.

After combing through numerous research articles for this paper I was able to select the ones that best answered the research questions I had. I looked at articles ranging in topics from brain science, motivation/attention, and the use of music in education and e-learning picking the ones that helped to answer my questions and omitting those that did not. It is easy to find a number of articles on each of these topics, but trying to find the ones that will answer your research question and help guide your research is another thing. I believe this paper does a good job of showing my ability to identify solid research articles that help to guide my research paper towards answering the question I had. Each of the articles was specifically selected for that very reason, while those that didn’t directly contribute to my research were omitted from the final paper.

In this paper, I combined research findings surrounding brain science, motivation/attention, and the use of music in education to figure out if the use of music in e-learning would be a help or a hindrance to the learning process. After extensive research and reading of professional articles and research papers, I was able to conclude that in fact, music is a hindrance to learning unless used properly by minimizing cognitive overload and focusing on using music as an attention grabber in the e-learning course. I believe this gives an excellent example of my ability to identify important research literature, evaluate it for its relevance to the research topic, and to apply the findings to answer important questions regarding the field of educational technology and instructional design.

The ability to conduct research and create knowledge is what this program is all about, and more importantly is what instructional design is all about. As instructional designers, it will be our job to design and develop courses that are going to effectively and efficiently help learners to create new knowledge that will help them in their futures. It is important for me to be able to identify, describe, and analyze common research methods so that I can remain up to date on the latest techniques in the research field, and identify my own abilities in regards to conducting research. This then takes us to the next point, which is I have to be able to properly read and evaluate research literature to identify its accuracy, its overall usefulness, and so I am only using solid evidence-based practices moving forward in the field. Most importantly though, I have to be able to continue applying what I find in my research to ensure that I am keeping up to date with the times. Without applying what I have learned, I am wasting my knowledge.