NSCI100: Individual Scientific Study Project Summer 2020
Purpose: To design a scientific research project in order to gain insight on the scientific method. You will not be required to do the experiment.
The topic for the first project should be based on your interests because you will be working alone. As stated in the lecture notes, scientific research requires a large amount of time and energy. Doing it on something that you want to learn more about will make it easier. The topic should also meet the following requirements:
1. 2 peer-reviewed research articles must exist and be less than 10 years old. 2. It is not one of the topics for which a sample has been posted on Moodle (e.g., pet therapy, Loch Ness
monster) 3. It is not a topic which is described in the lecture notes (e.g., any sleep study, listening to music while
studying expt, sports drink study, Tide or detergent study) 4. It is not a topic being done by another person in your class
You will design and propose a scientific research project. You are not redoing or repeating an existing experiment, but trying to come up with a relatively new experiment. This may seem daunting at first, but I am here to help you. We are trying to think like scientists as we gain an understanding of how the scientific method works in practice!
We will be using GoogleSlides to create the presentation, though you will not be doing a formal “presentation” to the class. You will be doing a peer-review with other members of the class through an on-line workshop. The format is to make it easier for me to see how your project evolved. You will need to create, if you don’t have one already, a Gmail or Google email account and tell me the username by placing it in the Moodle database. Each person in a group should have his/her own gmail account and edit using this account. I can then see individual contributions. For me to see the evolution of the presentation, the file will be stored on my Google account ([email protected]). I will be sending you a link and you will have permission to edit it. If I am not able to see a revision history, and the presentation just “appears” completed, you will not get full credit. The presentation should:
• be of a reasonable font size with slides that are not too crowded, indicating “cutting and pasting”. I should not see huge paragraphs of text EXCEPT in the Abstract.
• contain bulleted lists and phrases, be free of grammar and spelling mistakes, and be well organized and well written.
Because you may not have had recent experience with designing a study, it will be helpful for you to find research papers describing experiments that have already been done. Any resources should be placed in the Moodle database for me to be able to see. You should use the EBSCO on-line database search to find full-text articles and place a pdf of the articles in the database. The abstract is not enough. A minimum of 2 scientific articles are required. One of the articles should describe a scientific study (e.g., Contain a sample, data, results). The other may be a review article or another study. If you can’t find one in a peer-reviewed journal, contact me for help. I prefer peer-reviewed journals because the science has been verified in some way. Remember, I want you to come up with an original experiment, one that is not in any of these 2 research papers. You are not redoing an experiment already done. You are using your research as a springboard to propose a new study.
Here are some ways to come up with a new experiment:
• Use the procedure in one of your papers but change the sample. For example, a paper that focused on women and reflexology may be redone and include a larger number of women and men with different size feet.
• Modify the procedure and sample from an existing study. For example, a study on the effectiveness of noni fruit juice may have looked only at arthritis. You could expand the study to include a larger sample and more diseases.
• Using the sample from one paper and the procedure from another. For example, a study looked at zinc taken via sprays or lozenges to alleviate the symptoms of colds. Another determined that administering Echinacea pills at the onset of viral symptoms until 48 hours after they disappear will shorten a cold. So, a proposed study can be to give zinc at the onset of a cold until 48 hours after.
• Some papers will state at the conclusion that there are limitations to their study, and more research is needed or that a new direction is suggested by the results of the study. You may use this suggestion to propose a new study. For example, it was shown in a Mythbusters show that music did better than talking “sweetly” or talking “meanly” in making the plants grow, but the sample size was too small. The next step would be to increase the sample size, maybe vary the types of music and perhaps add the reading of poems or something else besides talking sweet or talking mean, which were already done.
Parts of the research project (see grading rubric for point values):
1. Title page: your name, your partner’s name, and title of experimental study
2. Abstract: This is a summary of your proposed experiment that gives a brief introduction and includes the
hypothesis, sample, and measurements. Generally this is 5-6 sentences. This is the only slide with text
in sentence & paragraph form. Everything else should be written in phrases a bulleted list.
3. Background or First Principles: This discusses what is known about the phenomenon studied and the
new direction your study is going. You should summarize the findings of the research studies and state
how you chose your hypothesis from what is known. How did you use these articles as a spring board to
propose your original research study? What are you doing that is new? What are the limitations of the
research experiments already done?
• So, your first principles section should come across as “This is what is known in this area and this is
what I propose to do that is different and has not been looked at before.” The idea is to add more
knowledge to what is already known. There should be a logical train of thought showing how you
formed your hypothesis (aka “motivation”).
• You should add the importance of the study. Pretend this proposal is being used to apply for a
monetary grant. Justify why you should be given funding!
• Additional material can be gathered from the Internet, newspapers, and non-peer-reviewed journals
to round out this section. This should be one of the largest sections in your study. Be sure to cite
your references.
4. Hypothesis: From the first principles, construct a hypothesis for your study. It should be a statement of
cause and effect (e.g., if…then…because) and match the design of your proposed study. It should not be
in the form of a question.
5. Variables: Describe the 4 types of variables.
• State the independent variable and the values for it.
• Briefly describe he dependent variable. You will expand on it in the procedure section.
• Identify the confounding variables and how you propose to remove them (if removing is possible).
• Don’t forget the constants, also known as controlling variables. Remember that some true variables
can be kept constant to make the data analysis easier.
6. Sample: Describe your experimental and control groups. How many subjects will constitute a
representative sample? What are the characteristics of each group? How will the sample be divided into
the groups? You must have a control group.
7. Ethical issues: If you’re using humans or animals, is your experimental design ethical? Recall that you
need informed, written consent from the subjects, and the subjects should be able to drop out of the
study at any time. Your proposal also needs to be approved by the appropriate institutional review
board.
8. Procedure and Measurements: Decide what you’ll be measuring and how you will measure it. Expand on
the description of the dependent variable. The procedure & measurements section will include how the
sample is chosen, the experimental set-up and procedure, length of the study, location of study, and
have enough detail to show that you’ve really thought about the proposed experiment. This should be
one of the larger sections.
9. Bias: State what bias exist and how you will minimize or remove bias. There were 4 types mentioned in
class: subject, experimenter, sampling, instrument. Instrument bias may not apply.
10. Because you are not doing the experiment, you will not have a Results section. You should have an
Experimental Analysis section. For the analysis section, ask yourself:
• How will the data be analyzed? Will you calculate statistical values? Use the test introduced in class
that determines whether 2 populations are statistically different? Use an analysis method
mentioned in one of the peer-reviewed articles? Use a statistical test from another class?
• What possible errors could occur & how would you remove?
• What results will clearly support your hypothesis and what won’t? You need to describe what
observations or measurements will support your hypothesis and what won’t support your
hypothesis.
11. Replication: How many times will you need to do the experiment? Self-replication is required to verify
results.
12. References: Cite and list your references in an acceptable format (e.g., APA style). For websites, don’t
just cut and paste the URL (need title, author, date created, etc.) Also be sure to cite sources for
information, illustrations, etc within the body of your presentation.
Updated: 5/22/2020 by Sharon Fredericks
