Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello Experts,

I am a teenage independent student-athlete living in Europe. Outside of my standard secondary school curriculum and elite soccer training, I coded and deployed a live mobile-optimised Progressive Web App (PWA) called 'Offload". The app serves as a visual, real-time stress-reset tool for high-performance teenagers experiencing acute academic and athletic burnout.

I am running an independent clinical pilot study to evaluate its real-world efficacy, tracking pre- and post-intervention stress markers using a 1–5 linear Likert scale. My goal is to compile a localized dataset of 48 active user logs on my cloud dashboard database.

I would heavily appreciate it if any data analysts, biology mentors, or medical experts could review my project structure to see if my methodology flow looks professional and if my content looks solid.

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Thank you so much for your scientific advice and feedback!

Hello Lucille,
I have judged science projects at the regional and international level ... here's a few suggestions/questions from that point of view ...

Since your app will be used by human subjects, you will need to have the project reviewed by your school/science fair Scientific Review Committee, including the written informed consent you ask your participants to read and sign. Here's some helpful Science Buddies guidance on conducting projects involving human subjects:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... egulations

This is an interesting but complex project ... I encourage you to take the time now to find a mentor or two, to cover the different aspects of your project. Here's some useful advice on finding mentors:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... tem-mentor
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... t-research

Here are suggestions for doing the background research ... which is also a good way to find possible mentors:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... fic-papers

It would be useful to learn how other researchers measured different types of stress, particularly in a pretest-post test situation. And how academic stress vs athletic stress might interact.

Knowing what other researchers set up their observations and analyzed their results should help you take advantage of what they learned!

One more link to Science Buddies resources ... this is on data analysis and the importance of thinking about the data analysis while you are designing and planning your trial ...

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... e-projects

I hope some of these guidelines are helpful!

Madeline
SB Moderator