Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

For the science fair this year me and my friend are conducting an experiment on handedness. You see my younger sister and I were in a quarrel on levels of smartness and then she added 'I am smarter because I am left handed'. SO me and my friend decided we would go and test that, but didn't realize that you can't really test knowledge. So we then decided to go and see what kind of factors might be the cause of hand dominance.
First we decided we would try hereditary.
Second we would try Psychological. We think that maybe your hobbies and stuff have something to do with handedness (the psychological state that you had when you were a kid and developed as you got older. The things you like now probably haven't changed since then, but I am not sure). So we would have like a survey on for example: theater on a scale of 1 to 5 tell if you like it 1 being the you hate it and 5 being you love it. That sort of thing.
Then we also added location. Does countries with a 'higher' intelligence had a more prominent amount of left handed people than countries of 'lower' intelligence?



So after summing it up here's my questions:
1. Is that a good idea?
2. What could we add or take it away (if it isn't good) that could help?

If you could please give me any information that could help us on our project.

Thank you,
Darknight

Hi,

You are off to a great start! I suggest you visit our Science Fair Project Guide: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml and work through from the beginning, by first deciding your question then identifying how you plan to answer it in a way that is measurable. For example, your first question may be: Do left handed people have higher IQ? To test this, you can use a survey or test/quiz to compare the IQs of your left and right handed volunteers. Be sure to do some research first - I am sure someone has looked into a connection between handedness and our genes - you may not need to test it!

Please let me know if you have further questions.

Hi Darknight,

Sunmoonstars has already given you some great advice. I think an IQ test of many different people would be a great way to see if handedness is related to intelligence. Make sure to check whether your science fair has any requirements for the use of human volunteers or waivers that your subjects would have to sign.

I did a quick search on Google Scholar and found a scientific article looking at the relationship between IQ and handedness in college students: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14640747608400586
You might be able to use this article as part of your background research, and to help you design your own experiment.

Let us know if you have more questions along the way!

Heather