control and experimental groups....help!!!

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megamix1998
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2012 12:07 pm
Occupation: Student:8th grade
Project Question: My project is called Candy Confusion. I am testing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders to see if they will confuse candy and medicine by looking at a simple photo. I am testing them on the following items: a grape lollipop, mentos candy, cherry cough drops, Ex-Lax, a cinnamon candy, aspirin, tums, and smarties candy. I am done testing my 100 subjects and have already analyzed my data. I am writing my abstract an am not sure how the control and experimental groups apply to my experiment.
Project Due Date: December10th,2012
Project Status: I am finished with my experiment and analyzing the data

control and experimental groups....help!!!

Post by megamix1998 »

:) I'm doing the project Candy Confusion- its on this website- and i dont know what my control and experimental groups are!! My teacher said to have a really easy candy as my control but what should my experimental group be?
~Megamix1998
megamix1998
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2012 12:07 pm
Occupation: Student:8th grade
Project Question: My project is called Candy Confusion. I am testing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders to see if they will confuse candy and medicine by looking at a simple photo. I am testing them on the following items: a grape lollipop, mentos candy, cherry cough drops, Ex-Lax, a cinnamon candy, aspirin, tums, and smarties candy. I am done testing my 100 subjects and have already analyzed my data. I am writing my abstract an am not sure how the control and experimental groups apply to my experiment.
Project Due Date: December10th,2012
Project Status: I am finished with my experiment and analyzing the data

Re: control and experimental groups....help!!!

Post by megamix1998 »

megamix1998 wrote::) I'm doing the project Candy Confusion- its on this website- and i dont know what my control and experimental groups are!! My teacher said to have a really easy candy as my control but what should my experimental group be?
~Megamix1998
Seriously i reeeeeeally need help and my abstract is due in a few days!
~Megamix1998 :)
Craig_Bridge
Former Expert
Posts: 1297
Joined: Mon Oct 16, 2006 11:47 am

Re: control and experimental groups....help!!!

Post by Craig_Bridge »

I'm confused! Are you doing a project based on this idea: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p016.shtml?

If you are basing your project on that kind of an investigation, there are lots of issue with running that kind of an experiment. READ THE CONCENT aspects and needing to get the project cleared with your Science Fair rules folks.

Without knowing what your hypothesis is, it would be hard to determine what if anything should be used as a control group.
Depending on your hypothesis and your experimental proceedure, the control group might not even be a medicine or candy, it might be a group of people, say some pharmacists professionally trained in identification of medicines.

In terms of pills looking extremely similar to some candies, a red 30 mg Pseudoephedrine tablet looks a lot like a round red hot candy once they are out of the packages.

There are some excellent materials available starting on the Science Fair Project Guide page that deal with the scientific method and possible ways of dealing with its different aspects including coming up with a testable hypothesis.
-Craig
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