School
of Education
Last Update:
Aug 12, 2002
Description for Experimental Design
Your experiment design and format should consist of the following parts:
Question: (What do you want to find out, why is this question important to you?)
Hypothesis: (Make sure that your hypothesis contains measurable, manipulated and responding variables)
Materials Needed: (Be specific about type and quantities of items needed)
Procedure: (Step-by-step description of what you are going to do to test your hypothesis)
Be sure to include a description of how often and how you are going to record data during the experiment, how the variables are operationally defined, factors to be held constant, how repetition will be achieved and what values of the manipulated variables you will use.
In a separate paragraph at the end of this section identify:
A. Controlled variables: (Everything else that you held constant during the experiment)
B. Manipulated variable: (The one thing that you changed)
C. Responding variable(s): (What changed as a result of the manipulated variable)
D. Control group: (Was one present? Why or why not?)
Present Results: The results are your raw data (only what you actually observed occur). These should be reported in a table (which includes repeated trials) and some type of visual representation. If it is appropriate, use a graph to illustrate your observations. Also include a statement which describes the relationship that you observed between the responding and manipulated variables.
Analyze data and draw conclusions: This is equivalent to the conclusion section of your experiment. Compare your findings with your initial hypothesis. Describe whether your hypothesis was or wasn't supported and how you came to this conclusion from the data you collected. If your hypothesis was not supported, answer the following questions:
What is a possible explanation for your results?
What might be an alternative hypothesis if you were to repeat the same procedure?
Describe how you would change your experiment: All experiments can be improved in some way. It might be quantifying the variables in a different way, changing the procedure to better answer your original question, or interpreting your result differently. Describe how you would change any aspect of your experiment to better answer your question and determine if your hypothesis was supported.
See rubric for details of how the grade will be determined.