The Effect of Poor Lightning Condition on Spelling Performance in 3rd Year Psychology Students Essay Example for Free

The Effect of Poor Lightning Condition on Spelling Performance in 3rd Year Psychology Students Essay The study was conducted to assess the disruption of cognitive performance such as spelling proficiency in a classroom with poor lighting condition. The participants were 31 students, who participated for course credit. It was hypothesized that participants undergoing the spelling test with poor lighting would report low results. The result of the mean is 4. 87 while the standard deviation resulted to 1. 91. We conclude that the results indicated that cognitive process such as vocabulary usage is greatly affected by poor lighting condition and is an affective instrument for determining how the subjects will respond to the given situation. The Effect of Poor Lightning Condition on Spelling Performance In 3rd year Psychology Students Vision is the ability of the brain and eye to detect electromagnetic waves within the visible range of light that makes them interpret this image as sight. Humans are a diurnal species (active in daytime) usually exposed to light while engaged in cognitive tasks. Light not only guides performance on these tasks through vision but also exerts non-visual effects that are mediated (Vandewalle, Maquet Dijk, 2009). People also can easily determine which changes in darkness and lightness are due to the physical properties f objects and the changes in illumination (Goldstein, 2008). The same research conducted by Vandewalle et al. (2009) also demonstrated that recent advancement studies ion vision which demonstrates that the wavelength, duration and intensity of light exposure adjust brain responses to (non-visual) cognitive tasks and adapts to different conditions. A similar study entitled â€Å"daylighting impacts on human performance in school† was conducted by Heschong, Wright Okura (2002) which aims to demonstrate a clear relationship between the presence of daylight and human performance. In humans, light enhances both alertness and performance during nighttime and daytime and influences regional brain function (Vandewalle Balteau, 2006). The results of these researches suggest that the adjustment of cognitive process and performance can vary to those people who are experiencing it with different and changing lighting condition as to support the claims of Makihara, Takizawa, Shirai Shimada (2007). Much of the studies conducted came with the conclusion that the more there is light, cognitive performance is absolute. In contrast, Landsberger (1955) found out in a study conducted by Hawthorne works that the workers’ productivity seemed to improve when changes were made and slumped when the study was concluded. Landsberger (1955) suggested that the productivity gain was due to the motivational effect of the interest being shown in them. However, it does not permit conclusions to be drawn about whether the lighting condition caused reductions in performance or was just a consequence of motivational effect in them (Simonson Brozek, 1948). In terms of effectiveness of lighting condition in increasing or reducing the performance of the subjects, the low lighting in the workplace may suggest that some of the subjects were just motivated in improving their performance to compete or may have been another case of demoralization. These drawn conclusions may suggest that this study is not that highly validated, thus, making it not that reliable also. The present study was an attempt to assess the disruption of cognitive performance, such as spelling proficiency in a classroom setting with no lighting. And the relationship of lighting and visual performance (Rea, 1992). Based on past experimental research on light as a modulator of cognitive brain function by Vandewalle et al. (2009) and related research on the effects of light exposure to brain responses (H. M. Parsons, 1974), it was expected that participants will end up with low scores in the spelling test due to low level of lighting. Method Participants Participants were 15 male and 16 female undergraduate students who attended San Beda College in Manila. The examiner used total enumeration in determining the participants. Total enumeration is selecting all members of the population without randomization. Apparatus The setting of the experiment was in classroom. It is of average size and the lighting is good. The room is also well ventilated. Then the participants were being ready for a spelling quiz. Instrument Participants were instructed to spell out the words given by the test instructor. The highest possible score on the test was 10. Design This experiment was a one-shot case design that is a type of pre-experimental design where a single group of test units is exposed to an experimental treatment and a single measurement is taken afterwards (Babylon, 2009) wherein the participants spelled in poor lighting and then the results was taken afterwards. Procedure The experimenter told the participants to prepare a paper for a spelling test. Then they proceeded with the experiment which is to spell words with the lights turned off. After the spelling quiz was done, the experimenter then opened the lights and then the results of the tests were checked. Results  The effect of poor lighting condition on spelling performance was assessed by finding the mean and standard deviation of the statistical data. The mean resulted to 4. 87 while having a standard deviation of 1. 91. Discussion The result of this study demonstrated that lighting condition greatly affects the cognitive performance of the students. As expected, majority of the participants garnered low scores during the unlighted spelling tests. Past research suggests that lighting conditions affects cognitive processes that tend to focus on how people would respond to that kind of situation (Vandewalle Balteau, 2006). The results of the present study support it because it demonstrates the validation of the past research and thus making it also reliable. In contrast to the study conducted by Landsberger (1955), which implies that the performance varies to the individual regardless of lighting condition, the results of the present study refute this idea. The results basically tell us that having the spelling test on unlighted condition will cause a poor cognitive performance. Although the hypothesis in this study was supported, the study has a limitation. No controls were taken to ensure that lighting condition experiment could occur into two experimental conditions. It is only a one-shot case study making it less dependable in stating whether a change in the outcome or dependent variable has taken place. In conclusion, the findings of this study are consistent with the claim of researchers such as (Vandewalle, Maquet Dijk, 2009) that light not only guides performance on these tasks through vision but also exerts non-visual effects that affects the human cognition. Light really enhances both alertness and performance during nighttime and daytime as the claims of the study of Heschong et al. (2002) states that daylighting impacts human performance in school. Lighting condition plays a large role in cognition not just only by giving us vision or sight as to go on with perception but also the scientific discovery that light exposure dynamically enhances brain responses.