My Independent Studies Project (Category 1)

Independent Studies Project

Over the past year me and 3 of my friends had been working on an experimental project. The project title is "The Effect of Light on Speed of Reading".

We first got the idea for this project when I came across a research done by Miles Albert Tinker, it was about "The Effect of Intensity of Illumination upon Speed of Reading Six-Point Italic Print", you can view part of it by clicking HERE.

Here's a list of information about our project:

Objectives:

Our Experiment's objective is to find out what is the most suitable light intensity for reading.

Hypothesis:

The most suitable intensity of light for reading is most probably 350 lux.

Research have shown that the minimum light intensity required for typical desk office work is 320 lux.

Variables:

Independent Variable

Light Intensity (measured in lux)

Dependent Variables

Average speed of reading among students.

This is measured by how long each student takes to finish reading a passage and dividing the number of words the passage has with it.

Controlled Variables

1. Genre of passage
2. Distance between light source and table
3. Reading ability of students
4. Surrounding Environment (noise level, etc)
5. Time of experiment (morning, afternoon, etc)

Materials and Equipments

1. Lux meter 
2. A lamp (to adjust brightness of light)
3. Stopwatches
4. Reading Materials of same genre 
5. 30 Volunteers

Methods and Procedures

A control experiment is needed to be conducted to find 30 students with the most similar speed of reading (within a range).

Over time, these chosen 30 students will be given different passages to read and the number of words they can read in a minute will be recorded down.

We will keep the genres of the books to the same and the difficulty at which there will be no new or unfamiliar words for the readers.

This is done to eliminate the problems that includes how appealing the passages are to the readers and the verbal skills of the readers.  

Results

We went through a couple of experiments conducted during the June holidays, the results are as below:

According to the data recorded, 500 lux is the ideal intensity for the pace of reading.

Over the course of this project, I learnt about the importance of teamwork and what it takes to be a leader of a team. It was a very valuable experience for me.