Experimental Design B/C

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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by Skink »

I think it's clear enough, but, so it's not 'my word versus theirs', let's link together the scoring rubric with the scoring explanation. The answer will be clear.

Suggestions for improvement of specific experiment are given
Suggestion for other ways to look at hypothesis given
Suggestions for future experiments given
Practical application(s) of experiment given

Add in the points from the scoring explanation with the sections in which they fit.

Suggestions for improvement of specific experiment are given
-Give at least one suggestion to improve the particular experiment you did (Other than we need better equipment or more time)
Suggestion for other ways to look at hypothesis given
-List another possible experiment to examine your same hypothesis
Suggestions for future experiments given
-Give at least one suggestion for a future related experiment
Practical application(s) of experiment given
-Give at least one practical application for the specific experiment done

It's unambiguous, then, that the alumnus was incorrect (or, at least, that the vast majority of event supervisors will score as you'd normally expect, anyway). What you were told is sort of, well, wildly different! Plus, I'm not really sure under what circumstances we'd ever stop to think about different hypotheses that our data set could address. That's unusual. So, yes, I'm confident that the 'easy' way is, also, the correct way. As a side remark, precedence is not a meaningful force in Science Olympiad. Just because an invitational event supervisor scored you one way does not suggest that it will recur!
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by XJcwolfyX »

For qualitative observations, how do you observations about results not directly related to the DV?
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by jkang »

XJcwolfyX wrote:For qualitative observations, how do you observations about results not directly related to the DV?
An easy example of doing this is the Div. C experiment at Wright State (mixing baking soda with vinegar). My group's hypothesis was pretty simple: if you add more baking soda to a given amount of vinegar in a beaker, then you'll see a larger volume increase of a balloon that is covering the beaker. For this experiment, observations can be things such as: "volume of balloon increased quickly at first, and slowed down as the reaction progressed," "balloon expanded to point of being firm, stayed that way for ___ seconds," or just general observations about what happened in the experiment that aren't necessarily quantitative. Another good example is if you're doing chemical reactions, observations can be things like "precipitate formed," "solution turned into ___ color," and so on.
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by XJcwolfyX »

Great, thank you!

But what if you were doing a physically experiment, like rolling a ball down a ramp or something with a parachute?
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by samlan16 »

XJcwolfyX wrote:Great, thank you!

But what if you were doing a physically experiment, like rolling a ball down a ramp or something with a parachute?
It could be something as arbitrary as "the parachute was made out of white tissues" or "we were standing next to a table". That usually works.
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by XJcwolfyX »

But how is that about the results?
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by UTF-8 U+6211 U+662F »

XJcwolfyX wrote:But how is that about the results?
I'm not in Experimental Design, but I'm in 6th grade science, so... somewhat similar in terms of the experiments.

Maybe "the ball rolled faster on the steeper ramp" or "the parachute dramatically slowed the descent down."
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by samlan16 »

XJcwolfyX wrote:But how is that about the results?
Okay. so as you know this is what the rubric says about qualitative observations:
g. Qualitative Observations (8 points)
_____ Observations about results given
_____ Observations about procedure/deviations
_____ Observations about results not directly relating to
Dependent Variable
_____ Observations given throughout the course of the
experiment
Clearly DV observations fall under the first criterion and experimental errors under the second. Here's the thing: your results directly involving your experimental apparatus will all involve the DV, so you need to find indirect results resulting from the IV. For example, if you are doing a coordination experiment in which a subject is spinning and then has to do a task like throwing a ball, a direct result would be that the subject struggled with throwing the ball, and an indirect result would be that he or she reported a feeling of dizziness. (Use that with caution.) If you are doing a parachute experiment testing parachute size on drop time, then any differences in the type of paper could qualify depending on how you operationally define your IV (especially if you must use different parachutes for each level. Note that this would not fall under the second criterion because you would have specified in the procedure the necessity for n different parachutes, and that would not be a deviation.)

Alternatively, you could evaluate other variables that could be DVs in other experiments. In the parachute experiment, another DV that could be used is (this is a stretch) tension in the string. You could report that the string appears to be variably strained by the weight attached depending on the parachute used.
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by JonB »

Anyone have any super-creative Exp Designs in recent tournaments that they would like to share? As a coach, I am running out of new ideas...

Thanks!
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Re: Experimental Design B/C

Post by bernard »

JonB wrote:Anyone have any super-creative Exp Designs in recent tournaments that they would like to share? As a coach, I am running out of new ideas...

Thanks!
I'm not on this event, but from what our students have told me, at our state tournament the topic was turbulence and students were given balloons, string, paper, paperclips. That's all I remember from the materials.

I thought the MIT Experimental Design prompt was creative. Our students designed an experiment on parallax for it.
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