Study audio and perceived productivity: An exploratory analysis of a secondary-school repeated-measures dataset

This preprint reports an exploratory repeated-measures analysis of study audio conditions among 30 students at Nazarbayev Intellectual School of Science and Mathematics in Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan. Each student completed three task blocks under music with lyrics, instrumental music and silence. Outcomes included reading comprehension, numerical problem-solving accuracy, completion time, perceived focus, distraction and retrospective score estimates. Three follow-up interviews provided qualitative context. All 720 task responses were rescored. Mean total scores were 5.43 of 8 under lyrics, 6.60 under instrumental music and 6.77 in silence. Instrumental music exceeded lyrics by 1.17 points, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.81 to 1.52. Silence exceeded lyrics by 1.33 points, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.95 to 1.72. The silence-minus-instrumental difference was 0.17 points, with a 95% confidence interval of -0.27 to 0.61, which does not establish superior accuracy in silence. Instrumental music received the highest mean focus rating and was selected as most productive by 19 of 30 students. The selected condition matched the highest observed score, including ties, in 13 records. The findings distinguish measured task performance, perceived productivity and score-estimation accuracy. All analyses are exploratory and concern short tasks in a small, purposive sample from one school. Supplement S1 provides scoring rules, aggregate questionnaire results, task materials and additional analyses. The manuscript has not undergone peer review.