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| Photo credit: Flickr user striatic |
Researchers observed 24 kindergarten students who were taught in two different classrooms. One room had commercial decorations and children’s artwork on the walls, while the other had nothing. Students were observed during lessons where teachers read to them in five- to seven-minute periods about the Solar System, bugs, and plate tectonics.
During the lessons, researchers noted how often the students focused on the teacher versus being distracted by themselves, others, or the visual environment. The kindergarteners took multiple-choice picture tests after the lesson in both classrooms.
Findings revealed that kindergarteners taught in a “highly decorated” classroom scored lower on tests and were more distracted during lessons than those taught in a room with bare walls. Admittedly, even in the sparse classroom students were distracted by other students or themselves. However, in the decorated classroom, the study found that children were more likely to be distracted by the visual environment and spent much more time “off task.”
The Carnegie Mellon team is now observing children in kindergarten through fourth grade to test the hypothesis that students in the upper grades are less distracted by decorations, since concentration improves with age. The study’s lead author, a psychology professor, admits that further research on the kindergarten results is needed due to the study’s small size and controlled setting.
