procrastination \proh-cras-tuh-NAY-shuhn\, noun:
1. To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness.
"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday"
- Don Marquis
A small group of test subjects (a sample) is often used to make a generalization about a large gourp of subjects (a population).
A. Some weaknesses of our study include non-response biases, multiple-response biases, and measurement bias. Some people in the study circled more than one genre, too. Another weakness is that we surveyed the junior class only. This study is not a representation of the entire high school, or the high school-age students across the country by any means. The way we asked the question could have an effect on response, and the mood of the person when they took the survey could also affect. Confounding variables could include parental status, class difficulty / level, influence of friends (peer pressure), and motivation for the future. I’m sure there are other plausible confounding variables; we just aren’t creative enough to think of them right now.
B. We believe that music has an effect on the emotions of an individual and can describe how the person behaves, or what his character is like. A person listens to music that agrees with his mood. We believe that more rebellious or more depressing genres might suggest more procrastination. Music, like punk, emo, death metal, or rap, would tend to influence regular listeners in a more procrastinating way.
C. If we were to do the experiment another time, we would use a larger number of subjects from the population in our sample. Of the 40 surveys we sent out, we only received 29 back, making the experiment invalid. Another method that might be changed is the way the surveys are conducted in order to minimize response bias. Of the surveys that were returned, many had not followed directions, circling multiple genres and making our survey even less valid.