Considering Language Barriers and More Data Analysis!
This past week has been another eventful one, as I finished seeing the last few residents at Sunshine and have completed the data collection portion of my project! One of the participants was a native Spanish speaker, and therefore struggled more with the language test than other participants simply due to language barriers. However, she did significantly better during the second session when music was involved, and I was able to notice an increase in attentiveness, along with an increased ability to understand me and follow my directions. The other two residents I worked with this past week performed similarly in both sessions; however both of them greatly appreciated the music. One participant had the lyrics to every song memorized and was able to sing along for the entirety of the session. Similarly, the other participant was very familiar with the music I was playing for him and was not only able to name each song, but was also able to identify the artist of each song, as well as some fun trivia facts about each artist.
Now that the main part of my research study is over, I can focus on data analysis and preparing my final products. I have finished inputting the entirety of my data in a separate Excel spreadsheet in order to efficiently perform a paired sample T test. In the first two columns, I have divided my entire data into scores received when listening to music and scores received without listening to music. The next two columns contain the scores of residents with neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s dementia, vascular dementia, alcohol related dementia, and Parkinson’s related dementia, split similarly in two groups based on the scores received in the presence or absence of music. The final two columns contain the scores of residents with psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and schizoaffective disorder, again split based on the scores received in the presence or absence of music. I will be completing my data analysis in the coming week, and will summarize my conclusions in the next blog post.
Although my work at the assisted living facilities has come to an end, I will visit one last time next week in order to thank the staff for accommodating me in the units, to thank the directors for allowing me to work with their residents, and of course to say my final goodbyes to all the residents. I will continue to stay in contact with my on-site and off-site mentors, as I work through my final presentation, paper, and poster.
For my paper, I have completed the abstract, introduction, and methodology, and will simply need to add my data and write up a conclusion and a discussion of my results. For my final presentation, I will be finishing up my last few slides on my final conclusion, a reflection of my final results including what went well and any improvements that could be implemented for future studies to gain more accurate results, and most importantly, a deeper, personal reflection on my internship experience as a whole.
Thank you for reading and for following me along on my journey as I begin wrapping up my senior project! See you guys next week for my final blog post!