Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi everyone,

I am new here and I thought that I would share what my 7th grade son is doing for his science project this year. Since I am constantly telling my son that he should not watch TV while doing his homework he had the wise idea of trying to prove that TV watching while doing his homework doesn't effect the outcome and he is still learning something.

I (being a part time web developer) decided that we could test this theory by creating a website that has two math tests. One would be a control test and one would be the test taken by people while being distracted.

We would like to invite everyone reading this to help out by taking the tests. We will compile the results and post them after we have enough sample data.

If you would like to help you can take the test here:

Science Project - What are the effects of watching TV while doing homework

Thank you in advance for helping out.

This is a cool project! I would also suggest looking at the time that it takes for people to complete the test. Even if people do equally well on the tests, if it takes them a lot longer, that's also a good reason to not watch TV while doing work that requires your brain.

I normally try to do "brainless" or repetitive tasks while watching TV, like organizing papers or something. That tends to work better . Good luck with the project!

Amber_MIT wrote:This is a cool project! I would also suggest looking at the time that it takes for people to complete the test. Even if people do equally well on the tests, if it takes them a lot longer, that's also a good reason to not watch TV while doing work that requires your brain.

I normally try to do "brainless" or repetitive tasks while watching TV, like organizing papers or something. That tends to work better . Good luck with the project!

Hi Amber. Yes we are measuring the time for each test. Have you had a chance to take it? We still need more data.

I'll try to take the test sometime this week while I watch TV.

You could also ask your son's classmates if they would take the test, too. I doubt you will get very much data from Science Buddies. A lot of the Experts are busy and only log in to answer posts (and there's only 30 Experts or so), and I don't know how many regular viewers will take it. There might be other forums online that would be better for this type of thing.

If you want to post a brief summary of the results after the project is complete, that would be fine (I'm interested in knowing the overall results ). However, we discourage posting data on the forums because some students will just copy other people's results instead of doing the experiment by themselves.

Let us know if you have any questions.

hi.

this is an awesome project and i would love to know the results.if you dont like to post then please do email me at [e-mail deleted by moderator]. thank you so much hope you have great success in doing this project.

Would you please post the results ...i would love to know them!