Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Dear Researchers,

My name is Marrissa Hanely, and I'm doing a project on distractions. What I'm doing is I'm trying to find out which age group won't be bothered in distractions. What I'm doing is I'm getting 5 seniors, 5 adults, and 5 children of each gender and I'm going to look at the results (I gave them five tests each--math questions and thinking problems).

I have some questions.

1) I don't know what to put in the abstract part of my project.

2) I don't know what to put in the introduction because I can't find any resources on distractions.

3) I don't know what to put in the disussion part of my project.

4) Can you tell me where to get some background information on distractions, please? I beg you a million times. I couldn't find anything anywhere. And I don't know what I should put in my background information.

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Can you please answer these questions ASAP, please?
My Science Fair is due at the beginning of February.

Thanks for your help,

Marrissa Hanely

This topic has been the focus of a lot of scientific research, especially looking at people with ADHD, but the studies I found were extremely technical and hard to understand. You might do better to reference sources that talk about developing good study skills. They will probably talk about distraction and how it diminishes performance.
You didn't say in your post what type of disctractions you were using, such as noise (an auditory distraction) or a visual distraction (like someone waving their arms or running around the room) or an internal distraction (being hungry or having to use the restroom, for example). There are also websites that market tools or techniques for overcoming distractions. I would check them out, but be careful because their motivation is to sell you something, not to educate you. Doing a google search with keywords like "attention" "auditory distraction" and/or "study skills" should give you some things to discuss in you abstract and introduction. For your discussion, you could talk about what you found in your study and then mention briefly the kinds of distractions you didn't use in your study (mentioned above) and what effects that might have on concentration. Feel free to post another reply if you need more help!

Lee
Science Buddies
Ask an Expert

I'm talking about sound distractions like intruder alarm, Barney Music, Telephone Ringing, etc.

I just need some website on my topic.

Thanks,

Marrissa Hanely

Here's a website on auditory processing:

http://www.auditoryprocessing.com.au/1-auditory.html

I would also try the Google searches I mentioned in my previous post, or doing one with the keywords "auditory processing."

Good luck!

Lee