Hello All:
We just turned in our proposals, so now it is time to move on to creating a plan of action for my research. Since I am performing an experiment, I will not be able to actually get started on my data collection until February. But that does not mean that January will be a month of sitting around and doing nothing for me; I will have to prepare all the logistics of my experiment as well as learn how to analyze my data, so I can quickly write up the results section after I collect my data in February.
In terms of a timeline for the actual experiment, I am currently in the process of coordinating the use of rooms at BASIS Scottsdale for my experiment with Ms. Jordison. She has already given me a tentative agreement for use of rooms, but now we just need to finalize all of the details. Throughout January, I will also be making sure that I have enough participants. I am going to recruit BASIS Scottsdale parents to participate. Depending on how many I initially get, I might need to recruit more adults. I will go about doing this by asking people who I or my parents know from various sources, then I will ask people to reach out to people they know. Hopefully, I can get enough BASIS Scottsdale parents to participate in my experiment, but I will need about 50-60 participants, so if I do not get that many participants, I will still have January to gather more participants for my experiment.
Besides preparing the experiment, I will also need to learn how to analyze the results. I will need to research how to understand data better by cross referencing surveys. I am going to have people of different ages, genders, and incomes, so I need to learn how to analyze data from people of different demographics and compare them. I will also need to learn about how to write up experimental data and analyze it.
By late February, I should be done with the experiment and data collection, so then I will start to write up my results. My results and conclusions sections should take me to the end of March. I will need to implement what I learned in January and cross reference my data with the survey results in order to compare the relative influence of the effects. (401)
Hey bub!
ReplyDeleteSo I'm really glad that Ms. Jorinson has been willing to work with you and help you in figuring out the room situation and how you're going to set things up. It's good that you don't have to scramble around trying to find someplace to carry out your experiment.
You might have to reach out to more people, because, depending on how long participants will actually be in the building 50-60 people may not be willing or available to participate, but I think it's a good number to shoot for because it'll provide you with a representative sample.
In terms of the timeline, it generally seems to be ok. Tell me more about what kind of an analysis you think you'll have to do and what you think it'll require. Might you need to enlist help from a math teacher or someone who can help you to categorize data and people's reactions?
When is your experiment? Is it over a couple days? When in February?
Overall though, it looks great and I'm excited to see how the experiment goes!
Hi Max,
ReplyDeleteSeems like your experiment design is going well. The room securing is significant, and hopefully Ms. Jordinson can iron out the details soon.
The concerns arise with your soft deadlines and hopeful participation count. Running your experiment with 50-60 people requires the coordination of volunteers as well because I don't think you can secure the participants for long enough. They need to be informed on the time they are required to wait if you intend to solo the whole research project.
You may want more solid dates for your timeline. The deadlines need to be more defined or else you will slip into irrelevancy. The analysis also needs to be better defined in terms of how long it takes.
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Ashwath V.