Science Fair Question
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PeggyMadonna
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Science Fair Question
Ok, so I have an idea for a science fair project, but I'm having a difficult time trying to figure out what the actual procedure would be. I want to test how many people would consider themselves to be leaders, and then what qualities someone must project to their audience to be considered a leader. I am currently polling a bunch of my friends with those exact questions, but I'm not sure what the next step is now that I am getting results. Could anyone help me out?
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SciB
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- Project Question: I wish to join Scibuddies to be able to help students achieve the best science project possible and to understand the science behind it.
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Re: Science Fair Question
Hi Peggy,
Leadership qualities are a pretty broad bunch of characteristics and depend a lot on the situation. A president may be a good leader and a football coach may be a good leader, but they don't have the same skill-set.
I think you need to narrow your focus and try to come up with a testable hypothesis--like men are naturally better leaders than women (NOT so!). The difficulty in this type of project is defining the sort of situation in which leadership is required and then coming up with a list of questions that give you the data that you need to prove or disprove a hypothesis.
Also, you have to define what you mean by 'good' leader--from whose perspective? The stockholders of a company will call their CEO a good leader if she makes a lot of money for the business. The workers may say that she is a terrible leader because she does not care about their needs. It's complicated.
Think about this some more and try to focus on just one aspect of leadership and how it might interact with society or the environment. Then, I think you will be able to come up with a more specific set of questions to test your hypothesis. Many social scientists who use questionnaires like this pose questions that are answerable by using what is called a Likert scale. I'm sure you have seen an example of this. It uses numbers from 1, which means STRONGLY AGREE to 5, STRONGLY DISAGREE. This type of answer to a survey question allows you to get a numerical value that can be used to do statistical tests. Remember that for your results to be accurate, you need a fairly large sample, probably at least twenty people and evenly representing men and women.
Post again with some more specific questions about leadership and we will try to steer you into a workable project that will give some interesting and maybe surprising results.
Good luck!
Sybee
Leadership qualities are a pretty broad bunch of characteristics and depend a lot on the situation. A president may be a good leader and a football coach may be a good leader, but they don't have the same skill-set.
I think you need to narrow your focus and try to come up with a testable hypothesis--like men are naturally better leaders than women (NOT so!). The difficulty in this type of project is defining the sort of situation in which leadership is required and then coming up with a list of questions that give you the data that you need to prove or disprove a hypothesis.
Also, you have to define what you mean by 'good' leader--from whose perspective? The stockholders of a company will call their CEO a good leader if she makes a lot of money for the business. The workers may say that she is a terrible leader because she does not care about their needs. It's complicated.
Think about this some more and try to focus on just one aspect of leadership and how it might interact with society or the environment. Then, I think you will be able to come up with a more specific set of questions to test your hypothesis. Many social scientists who use questionnaires like this pose questions that are answerable by using what is called a Likert scale. I'm sure you have seen an example of this. It uses numbers from 1, which means STRONGLY AGREE to 5, STRONGLY DISAGREE. This type of answer to a survey question allows you to get a numerical value that can be used to do statistical tests. Remember that for your results to be accurate, you need a fairly large sample, probably at least twenty people and evenly representing men and women.
Post again with some more specific questions about leadership and we will try to steer you into a workable project that will give some interesting and maybe surprising results.
Good luck!
Sybee
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cnoonan180
- Expert
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Re: Science Fair Question
Hello!
You may want to try a different survey question that requires a more "yes" or "no" type of response. For example, choose two topics you are interested in, and survey which one your classmates prefer such as chocolate vs. vanilla ice cream or a topic such as such do your classmates like math or English class better. You also may want to try a psychology-related experiment such as a memory experiment.
This is a survey project that calls for you to ask your classmates about the different types of games they play:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ?from=Blog
Here's a project that tests how exercise affects memory:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure
Here's a page where you can learn more about conducting a scientific survey project with a few more project ideas:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/blog/sur ... hypothesis
Hope this helps and feel free to ask more questions!
-cnoonan180
You may want to try a different survey question that requires a more "yes" or "no" type of response. For example, choose two topics you are interested in, and survey which one your classmates prefer such as chocolate vs. vanilla ice cream or a topic such as such do your classmates like math or English class better. You also may want to try a psychology-related experiment such as a memory experiment.
This is a survey project that calls for you to ask your classmates about the different types of games they play:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ?from=Blog
Here's a project that tests how exercise affects memory:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure
Here's a page where you can learn more about conducting a scientific survey project with a few more project ideas:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/blog/sur ... hypothesis
Hope this helps and feel free to ask more questions!
-cnoonan180