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Scientific Experiment

Scientific Method

  • General way of organizing an investigation

  • Repeatable experimentation

  • Trying to observe and understand the natural laws in our universe

  • Hypothesis: your educated guess of what it is you’re observing -> the more knowledge you have of a particular phenomenon the better your hypothesis

  • Hypothesis must be testable

  • The better you setup your experiment, the better the results/final conclusion

  • The conclusion only has one statement: either support or reject your hypothesis

  • Framework to consider ideas and evidence in a repeatable way

Science and Society

  • The application of science for practical purposes is called technology

  • Science is impartial and does not make ethical or moral judgements

  • The role of society is to use scientific info to make informed decisions about the use of technology

Progression of the Scientific Method

  • Hypothesis: a proposed explanation for a scientific phenomenon

  • Theory: a more thoroughly tested and accepted hypothesis-> best explanation we have out of all other explanations

  • Principle: more concrete concepts, but they don’t explain the broad subject (more specific than theories)

  • Law: description of a phenomenon

  • The more we understand a concept the more we can predict the outcome

  • Want to know how everything absolutely works

Experimental Design

  • Variables: changeable element of an experiment

    • Independent variable: manipulated variable

    • Dependent variable: shows response

    • Standardized variables: held constant for all subjects

  • Important to have a diverse sample size because it will give you better results; conclusion applies to more people

  • Placebo effect: when you truly believe you’ll get better/cured, you do

  • All other factors must be held constant so only the IV and DV are correlated

  • Controls: provides a basis for comparison to the experimental group

  • Placebo: inert substance resembling treatment given to the experimental group

  • Double blind design: neither researchers nor participants know who received the substance being evaluated until after the data is tabulated

Scientific Experiment

Scientific Method

  • General way of organizing an investigation

  • Repeatable experimentation

  • Trying to observe and understand the natural laws in our universe

  • Hypothesis: your educated guess of what it is you’re observing -> the more knowledge you have of a particular phenomenon the better your hypothesis

  • Hypothesis must be testable

  • The better you setup your experiment, the better the results/final conclusion

  • The conclusion only has one statement: either support or reject your hypothesis

  • Framework to consider ideas and evidence in a repeatable way

Science and Society

  • The application of science for practical purposes is called technology

  • Science is impartial and does not make ethical or moral judgements

  • The role of society is to use scientific info to make informed decisions about the use of technology

Progression of the Scientific Method

  • Hypothesis: a proposed explanation for a scientific phenomenon

  • Theory: a more thoroughly tested and accepted hypothesis-> best explanation we have out of all other explanations

  • Principle: more concrete concepts, but they don’t explain the broad subject (more specific than theories)

  • Law: description of a phenomenon

  • The more we understand a concept the more we can predict the outcome

  • Want to know how everything absolutely works

Experimental Design

  • Variables: changeable element of an experiment

    • Independent variable: manipulated variable

    • Dependent variable: shows response

    • Standardized variables: held constant for all subjects

  • Important to have a diverse sample size because it will give you better results; conclusion applies to more people

  • Placebo effect: when you truly believe you’ll get better/cured, you do

  • All other factors must be held constant so only the IV and DV are correlated

  • Controls: provides a basis for comparison to the experimental group

  • Placebo: inert substance resembling treatment given to the experimental group

  • Double blind design: neither researchers nor participants know who received the substance being evaluated until after the data is tabulated

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