Experimental Design B/C

[dc.9231]

I have a question.

I am fairly new to Experimental Design, I just joined this year, and I recently went to a competition with a very strange prompt. I don't remember exactly what it was but it was something to do with the picture your brain paints fro different words. Our teams experiment ended up being how long it took to paint a mental image for a couple words. So I'm just wondering if this is normal, because I was under the impression that the experiments were hands on, such as dropping a ball from different heights and seeing how far it bounces.

Thank you!

[dc.9231]

okay i dont know if anyone has asked this yet but what are the levels for the independent variable? anything would be helpful thank you!!

I'm not 100% sure but I'm pretty sure it's what you are changing. If you dropped different balls and saw how high they bounced, the different balls would be your levels of IV. Again, you should probably check with other people but this is my guess as to what it means.

[splane21]

I have a question.

I am fairly new to Experimental Design, I just joined this year, and I recently went to a competition with a very strange prompt. I don't remember exactly what it was but it was something to do with the picture your brain paints fro different words. Our teams experiment ended up being how long it took to paint a mental image for a couple words. So I'm just wondering if this is normal, because I was under the impression that the experiments were hands on, such as dropping a ball from different heights and seeing how far it bounces.

Thank you!

This is usually not normal but I have seen similar experiments before at invites. If I remember right, I think the Rice Invitational has had some similar prompts in the past. Although this event will usually have you do a hands on task, it's still possible to do something like you mentioned above and to do an experiment/write up a report on it.

[NadiaT]

I have a question.

I am fairly new to Experimental Design, I just joined this year, and I recently went to a competition with a very strange prompt. I don't remember exactly what it was but it was something to do with the picture your brain paints fro different words. Our teams experiment ended up being how long it took to paint a mental image for a couple words. So I'm just wondering if this is normal, because I was under the impression that the experiments were hands on, such as dropping a ball from different heights and seeing how far it bounces.

Thank you!

This is usually not normal but I have seen similar experiments before at invites. If I remember right, I think the Rice Invitational has had some similar prompts in the past. Although this event will usually have you do a hands on task, it's still possible to do something like you mentioned above and to do an experiment/write up a report on it.

I concur with that. This is my fourth year on the event, and I haven't ever seen an experiment like that, but I could see it happening, especially at an invitational. However, I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about it, as it's unlikely you'd see it at a state or regional competition.

[Mr.McK]

Can anyone give an example of a "qualitative observation about results after the experiment?" Isn't the idea of experimental design to make a claim and then design an experiment to quantify it? So the results are inherently quantitative.

Our team is having difficulty putting anything meaningful in that portion of the template. Help would be appreciated!

[splane21]

Can anyone give an example of a "qualitative observation about results after the experiment?" Isn't the idea of experimental design to make a claim and then design an experiment to quantify it? So the results are inherently quantitative.

Our team is having difficulty putting anything meaningful in that portion of the template. Help would be appreciated!

You can make observations about the data as a whole after the experiment (general trends, etc) while you wouldn't be able to make any observations about the data as a whole during the experiment.

[glin1011]

Can anyone give an example of a "qualitative observation about results after the experiment?" Isn't the idea of experimental design to make a claim and then design an experiment to quantify it? So the results are inherently quantitative.

Our team is having difficulty putting anything meaningful in that portion of the template. Help would be appreciated!

Usually I tell my middle schoolers to write about post-results, especially when it involves your data. It’s a good example to use when starting Part 2 when it comes to C.E.R./your data analysis.

Based off the rubrics I’ve graded, some students usually talk about a recurring issue that happens during their experimentation, and as an “after” result talk about the effect this trend may have had on their experiment - maybe might have skewed the data, might’ve made inaccurate readings, etc.

[lumps]

For the Data Trend part of the analysis, would it be better to calculate the MAD, standard deviation, or neither?

[splane21]

For the Data Trend part of the analysis, would it be better to calculate the MAD, standard deviation, or neither?

MAD or standard deviation doesn't really make sense for data trend part of analysis. Line of best fit or r/r^2 would be more relevant statistics for data trend.

[splane21]

For the Data Trend part of the analysis, would it be better to calculate the MAD, standard deviation, or neither?

If you're Division B though, you can write a good data trend analysis using only averages. MAD or SD definitely doesn't make sense though.