Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Dear Sir/Miss
This is my procedure:
1.Send consent forms to each of the subject’s legal guardian. (Explain in the consent form what your project is about and what they are required to do.)
2.Divide the subjects into two groups: the control group and the experimental group
3.Choose a science article appropriate for the subjects’ age that contains at least seven to ten facts.
4.Design a test for the information in the science article.
5.Teach the experimental group several mnemonic techniques that could be useful for a test. Tell them to choose one or more techniques to help them retrieve the information on a test.
6.Give the science article to both the experimental and control groups and tell them to study its contents for a test tomorrow.
7.Give the test to the subjects the next day.
8.Mark the tests and compare the average scores for those of the experimental and control groups.

I need help in the following:
1. what kind of science article shall i use and what article shall i use?
2. how can i control fact that some people might be better at using mnemonics?
3. how will i make the intelligence distribution the same in each group?

PLEASE HELP ASAP!!! i really appreciate this website and all the efforts of all the people contributing in making this website!!
Thank you very much!!!!

Hi Fifi,

Your project sounds really good. Here are some suggestions to your project, I hope they will help!

1. intellegence distribution: Maybe a preliminary test would work. If you could gather people to take the preliminary test...like an IQ test...you would be able to determine the middle range and choose the test subjects from that angle.

2. Choose a science article depending on the knowledge of your subjects. Since you are trying to teach them using mnemonics, try giving them a challenging article that discusses the topics they already know.

3. As for determining how fast one can grasp a mnemonic device compared to others, I am not expertised in this area. Another Expert will be able to post.

Hope this helps!

Sincerely,
Sareena

thanks your help and time and effort Sareena!! my original project was about IQ but i had to change it because a psycologist told me that IQ testing is very complicated and that most reliable and valid tools for measuring intelligence are restricted for use only by trained professionals who must abide by a strict ethical code.

Hi Fifi,

Well done, you are doing a good job at thinking through your experiment and the potential problem areas.

For Q1. I think its important to try and make sure that the article contains specific facts. This will make the test easier to design. It also needs to be facts that are not already known to the students. And that you can design mnemonics for. How about something that lists the arteries and veins in the body, and muscle groups or something like that - i expect that there are some mnemonics available on the web that you could use.

Q2. This is a difficult one. I don't think you can control for that. You also cannot be sure that some of the control group will not think of using mnemonics on their own. I think you just have to be aware of this in your report of the experiment and list it as a possible source of variability.

Q3. This is also tricky. Often how experimenters get around this type of problem (called sampling bias) is to use a really large number of subjects (thousands of people) in the experiment. Or they do the experiemnt in 2 separate cohorts - completely different groups of people. Eg first experiement with chldren from school A, second experiemnt with children from school B.
This is probably not possible for you. So you just have to do the best that you can. Choose all of your students from the same grade or have the same number from each grade in each group. Assign students randomly to each group. And again mention this in your discussion of possible sources of variability.

best of luck,
Caroline

Thank you very much Catherine! This really helped!!