Hi!
Sounds like a really interesting topic, it should be suitable for 8th grade level. However, for the analysis part of the project, I would suggest you consult a teacher concerning the statistics involved. Good luck!
"There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere." -Isaac Asimov
I would say that it would be extremely difficult to have a control for this experiment, as everyone has listened to a variety of genres of music, which would confuse your results. Also which music they choose to listen to may depend on their results on an IQ test (e.g. perhaps more intelligent people tend to listen to classical music... don't know if that's true, just an example). If that is true, determining cause and effect could be quite a challenge.
The problem with trying to test their IQ, have them listen to different genres of music, and then test their IQ again is that you'd either have to use the same test, in which case the scores will be invalid because they've seen the test before, or a different test, in which case the data analysis will be extremely difficult because the results may not correlate well.
I'm not saying it's impossible... just extremely difficult to do.
I agree with Ray. The best experiments that have been done on this topic deal with very short term effects (test performance in the minutes or hours after listening to certain music) and have been sometimes misinterpreted as implying that music choices can affect IQ. If you want to pursue the experiment, I recommend designing a very simple and well controlled short-term experiment. For example, give students a brief math test, ask them to listen to one minute of music, and then test them again. Who improves more, the Mozart crowd or the Rock and Rollers? Or you might find that there is no difference at all.
Regards,
Chris
