Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi,
I am trying to put together a project that measures students stress levels before and after exams. I will be taking note or use a survey if they have respiratory problems like asthma or how late they went to bed or basically anything that could increase their pulse rate. I will be measuring their stress levels by their pulse rate ( I will be using a mechanical device to check the pulse). Actually this is for another competition not for science fair. If the student has a disease like asthma I would like to see if the high stress levels had affected them any (like having to take a treatment) and also if they take medicine that act like amphetamines which speed up heart rate and makes stress worse like albuterol. With the results I would like to show how exams mentally and physically affect students and I would like to include students who have diseases that contribute to this factor. The only problem is that I am not sure where to start. Should I ask my school principal for permission to observe the students? Should I try asking some colleges? Do you think I should look at all students or just students with asthma or a certain type of disease? I have a good idea what I am looking for but can you give your honest opinion and critique my project please.

Thank you for your consideration.

Hi,

Your project appears to collect personal health information from other people(in particular,minors under the age of 18). As such it is subject to special rules of the competition sponsors. For more information see the Science Fair Project Guidelines on the Science Buddies website, particularly the Institutional Review Board topics.

Here are some of the links:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ects.shtml

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... _src.shtml

I highly recommend reviewing the entire Guide:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml

And contacting the sponsoring organization where the project will be submitted for local guidance.

Good luck on the project. It sounds like the results of your study would be of great interest to all students.

Best regards,

Barrett Tomlinson

Hello,
Do you think that it will be enough proof to test stress levels by using a device that measures pulse rate or should I use something else? Also do you think I should ask a university if I could observe their students or do you suggest I stick with my public school.? Thank you for the links they were very helpful!

Hi,

I am not trained in this area, so I am afraid I can be of very limited assistance to you.

I will make a few suggestions though. You appear to have plenty of time before this project is due, so you can afford to take some time and do some background research - please do this before trying to make any concrete plans. I believe you will find that there are a large number of questionnaires that will assess stress. While stress can be detected and assessed using physical measurements such as pulse rate, sweating, blood pressure, etc., I think the usual approach used by doctors, counselors, and other professionals is to ask a few questions or use a written or computerized assessment tool. A tool like one of these would be far faster, less expensive, and easier to manage in your situation.

You might also consider seeking out a mentor who has professional interest and skill in the subject you are attempting to investigate, particularly if you are considering a career in this subject area. People who might be knowledgeable and interested in this area might include a college or university professor in psychology or educational psychology, a practicing psychologist, an adolescent pediatrician, or even your high school guidance counselor or psychology teacher.

I would suggest spending at least a month reading everything you can get your hands on about this topic, on the web, in your local library, and if you can, in a local college or university library. Keep notes on what you have found(and the source in which you found it, the author who wrote it, and where they work). You should pretty quickly learn who is working and thinking about this problem. Then write a preliminary summary of what you have found out(with references), try to carefully state the question you want to investigate, try to state how you would propose to investigate it, and formulate your most important questions in writing. With this resource in hand you can approach those people whom you would like as mentors to see if they would be willing to help you. If they see you are serious and organized, many college professors will give you a little time and direction. Many hold open office hours when anyone can drop in to talk briefly with them, and others post their email address and will briefly respond to questions in their area of expertise.

The key to getting help from busy professional adults is to be very organized and brief when you approach them and get right to the point when you talk to them. They often have very busy schedules and will only be able to give you 10 minutes or so, so ask the really important question immediately, and do not bother them with any question you can answer on your own.

As far as whom you should study, I think you will probably be more successful in getting cooperation from students approximately your own age. I suspect the only way you could approach college students successfully would be if you could collaborate with a college professor(which I suspect is a rather long shot). You need to inform yourself about the protocols required for experimenting with human subjects before attempting this.

I wish you great success in your research!

Barrett Tomlinson

Hello,
I have decided to narrow my research since using every type of student might be too broad for my research and finding a good testing time might be too far-fetched. I have decided to test the relationship with asthma symptoms and stress. I have also decided to use a survey instead of checking pulse after exams. However, I am sorta stuck on the type of questions to ask. I have already developed questions like what type of medicine are you taking, how long have you had asthma etc., but what else should I include? Does my change seem to be for the better?

Hi Gizmogirl,

Just a reaction to the types of questions you're asking. You need to take particular note of barretttomlinson's note about collecting personal health information. In particular "type of medicine" can be a very touchy area. I know I would find it so for myself and members of my family.

And a fellow student may answer your questions, but their parents may object. If so, you may find yourself in a very messy situation. So you may want to have a consent form signed by one of student's parents.

If this is all sounding too difficult and time consuming, it is. So, you may want to change your topic or the questions you're asking.

Hello,
should I keep the question broad and follow with my first idea of just asking if they had any other diseases or problems? However, if they had any other diseases or health problems should I include that into my research as a benefactor for stress? Thank you for your consideration.

Hi Gizmogirl

Gizmogirl wrote:should I keep the question broad and follow with my first idea of just asking if they had any other diseases or problems? However, if they had any other diseases or health problems should I include that into my research as a benefactor for stress?

You're still asking for personal health information. The comments in my previous post apply. Is there any way to accomplish what you're doing without asking for personal health information?

Hi Gizmogirl,

I discussed your project with my wife, who commented that your project is very valuable;
we do to know more about stress! And that we should up with some way of pursuing it. One can ask potential people to be surveyed a question with three parts.

Before asking the question, explain disqualifying items in 1 and 2, below, and how long the survey will take. Tell them to answer "yes" or "no" without explanation, in other words you're not asking which of three is disqualifies them. You don't want to know!

'Do any of the following disqualify you from taking my survey:

1. medications you're taking
2. your physical condition
3. the amount of time this survey will take?

So you won't know for sure whether a "no" is for item 1, 2 or 3.

P.S.: Note, you may need to modify 1, 2 or 3 above.

So a disqualifying format might be:

Do any of the following disqualify you from my survey:
1. You have to have been diagnosed with asthma
2. You have to have been diagnosed with asthma for at least a year
3. this survey should take about 5-10 minutes

In that type of format. Thank you so much for your consideration.

Hi Gizmogirl,

Looks good!

Some optional enhancements: you might try eliminating question 1 since a positive response to question 2 implies a positive response to question 1. On the other hand having question 1 in might generate more interest. You may try eliminating question 2 to get the entire population of people diagnosed with asthma.

The point being that the best surveys go through a test phase to refine the questions. Of course, a test phase is not practical with all surveys.

Hello,
I have been working on my survey and I will show you the finished product in a few weeks for critique but now I am working on getting the correct research. I have been looking at different experimental research documents about stress, asthma and asthma in general. However do you think I should ask professionals who study in the pulmonary field about their opinion of stress and asthma? If I do talk to a professional should I talk to them on the phone or set up a meeting with them? How should I present myself to them so they do not look at me as just a regular high school student and take me seriously?

Sincerely,
Krystal English

Hi Gizmogirl,

There are two approaches you can take:

1. Remotely, asking using the "contact us" function at national asthma research centers (such as the Mayo Clinic and the National Jewish Medical Research Center) and using the “contact us” function at each site.

At the Mayo Clinic it’s either:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/contact-us/contactus
or
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/asthma/AN01159

At the National Jewish Medical Research Center it’s:
http://www.nationaljewish.org/contact/index.aspx

2. Locally, you may want to contact a local hospital for community education or a specialty asthma department.

These approaches can done sequentially or in parallel. For example, you can start working #1 and then work on #2, while continuing to work on #1.

Gizmogirl,

I think that getting the opinion/advice of any professional currently doing research in the field of your study can be a very, very important factor that contributes to success. As David Kallman, pointed out, there are a couple of different ways to go about doing so. To elaborate on his second point, you might want to look for people at a college, university, or other research institution near where you live who are doing research on asthma and contact them via e-mail or phone. You can find people who are doing asthma research by looking at the literature. If someone is publishing a paper about asthma and stress and that person happens to be at a medical school an hour away from your hometown, then by all means contact them! Another useful way to find out if people near you are doing related research is to look at the faculty web pages on the website of colleges or universities near where you live. These webpages will often contain a brief statement of the research interests of the faculty members and a CV.

How should I present myself to them so they do not look at me as just a regular high school student and take me seriously?

This is a very, very good question because the way you present yourself will determine the kind of response you get.

(1) It is important that you be professional. When writing or talking to a researcher, use proper grammar and formal style. Avoid using slang and instant messaging/text messaging short hand.

(2) It is important that you be knowledgeable. You should be well enough versed in the vocabulary, scientific concepts, and research design principles of asthma research that you can talk with the researcher at a level far above what would be expected of a high school student.

(3) It is important that you have a plan. Think carefully about what you want to ask the researcher. His or hers time is probably rather limited, so be certain to plan what questions you would like to ask.

These are some general pieces of advice that I have found to be important with high school students are working with science professionals. I'm sure that some of the research scientists on the Forums will have some more advice, and if you have any questions, please ask them.

Good luck!

Hi Gizmogirl,

Terik Daly wrote:

How should I present myself to them so they do not look at me as just a regular high school student and take me seriously?

This is a very, very good question because the way you present yourself will determine the kind of response you get.

I agree with Terik Daly; presentation is important. Terik covered the content of how to present yourself. Other important elements are your confidence, and, if you do get to meet someone, the clothing you wear (aim for a professional business-type look).

Here is my finished survey. I am a little stuck on what questions I should ask the students about their stress levels. I tried to keep it on a teenage level to keep interest. Because of this format everythings alittle different but the 0 are check boxes and there are lines to divide the sections. I wanted to focus on academic stress since basic phsychological stress would take too much time and would be complicated to ask questions and would be too broad. Are the questions that I asked good enough to make a good assuption of the level of academic stress and categorize the students with their level of asthma? I decided to put the ALA survey on their to input their information into their system and by their standards see if their asthma is under control and categorize that into a chart depending on the stress question? Well please tell me what you think?

PLEASE DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME
Some points to look over before taking this survey:
1. You have to be diagnosed asthma
2. This survey will take around 10-15 min
3. Please remember that everything on this survey is completely confidential and will only be seen by the required proctors.

1. What grade are you in?
0 9th 0 10th 0 11th 0 12th

2. How long have you had Asthma (since diagnosed by doctor)?
0 A few months 01-2 years 02-4 years 0 4-6 years 0 6 years & up

3. On a scale of 1 to 10 how persistent are your asthma attacks? (1 being less frequent, 10 most frequent)
.
4. Do you believe that stress is a trigger for your asthma attacks? 0 yes 0no

5. How many times do you have to take your rescue inhaler?
0 Daily 0weekly 0Monthly 0 Yearly

6. Unfortunately, through all of the teacher’s warnings you have waited to the last minute to study for a major exam in one of your classes. Actually, you have waited until the night before, so in that case do you believe that you would feel your chest tighten or any other asthma symptoms?
0 yes 0no

7. Let’s say you get your report and in one of your classes you have a horrible grade of 54. While thinking “Oh my gosh, how did this happen” on top of “My parents are going to kill me” do you think you would feel any asthma symptoms?
0yes 0no

8. Do you have any other diseases or health problems? 0 yes 0no
a.) If yes please list:

9. Do you have any allergies? 0 yes 0 no

10. How many sports or extracurricular activities do you participate in?
0 0-1 0 1-2 02-4 05 or more

11. Do you hold an office in any of the activities? 0 yes 0 no

12. How many clubs do you participate in?
0 0-1 0 1-2 0 2-4 0 5 or more

13. Do you hold an office in any of these clubs? 0 yes 0 no

14. How many AP classes do you participate in?
0 0-1 0 1-2 0 2-4 0 5 or more

15. On a scale of 1-10 how much do you care about your grades? ( 1 being “ Eh, academics aren’t everything” , 10 being “ I would die if I got an F”)
.
16. Do you plan on going to college? 0 Definitely 0 Nope 0 Maybe

17. What type of college?

0Ivy League and private
0Public, Ivy League
0 Public, regular

These questions are from an official survey given by the American Lung Association.
1. In the past 4 weeks, how much of the time did your asthma keep you from getting as much done at work, school or at home?
0 all the time 0 most of the time 0some of the time 0a little of the time 0none of the time

2. During the past 4 weeks, how often have you had shortness of breath?
0 more than once a day 0 once a day 03 to 6 times a week 0Once or twice a week 0Not at all
3. During the past 4 weeks, how often did your asthma symptoms (wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath, chest tightness or pain) wake you up at night or earlier than usual in the morning?
04 or more nights a week 02 or 3 nights a week 0Once a week 0once or twice 0Not at all
4. During the past 4 weeks, how often have you used your rescue inhaler or nebulizer medication (such as albuterol)?
03 or more times per day 01 or 2 times per day 02 or 3 times per week 0once a week or less
0Not at all
5. How would you rate your asthma control during the past 4 weeks?
0Not controlled at all 0Poorly controlled 0 Somewhat controlled 0Well controlled
0Completely controlled

Gizmogirl,

This looks good; you should be proud of what you've accomplished in putting this together. Here are some suggestions and comments you might consider to make this survey even better:

(1) Remember that the wording of a survey is very important; seeming minor changes in wording can have a dramatic affect on the results you obtain. As a general rule, you want your questions to be as clear and understandable as possible. Working out the wording of questions can be a tricky thing; hopefully the comments of the Experts here can help you clarify things. You might also have a parent, friend, or teacher read through the survey questions and explain to you what they mean. If what the outside person says a question means does not match what you are trying to say, the question may need to be reworded. Confusing questions can introduce strong bias into your results.

(2) Try to avoid "leading questions". This is another tricky thing related to wording. If you only provide one side of an argument when asking a question, you are leading those taking your survey to a particular response and therefore biasing your results. This is something that is difficult to detect and hard to quantify, but it is something to keep in mind. Posing clear and neutral questions is a difficult challenge, but if you take the time to think about these issues, your project will stand out the judges because most students who do surveys don't stop for even a second to think about these things.

(3) Keep in mind that the people taking your questionnaire may lie, especially since some of your questions deal with potentially sensitive personal information, as David Kallman pointed out. There's not much you can do about this, but it is something to keep in mind.

(4) Remember that no matter how good your survey is, if the sample that you have selected to take the survey is not appropriately selected, you are more likely to have bias in your results than if you used random chance to select the sample. Of course, it will probably not be totally possible for you to take a probability-based sample, but you should still keep in mind that your sampling method can introduce bias into your data. Based on the conversation in this topic, I'm not sure if you have talked about how you are going to select the people who take your survey; if you haven't, let us know so that we can help you choose a realistic method. It would be sad if after all the work you've been putting into the survey itself your results were biased because you didn't think about your sampling method.

Here are some comments on the questions themselves:

PLEASE DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME
Some points to look over before taking this survey:
1. You have to be diagnosed asthma
2. This survey will take around 10-15 min
3. Please remember that everything on this survey is completely confidential and will only be seen by the required proctors.

As a general note, I would suggest that you use complete sentences in all the questions and instructions of the survey. The first question is somewhat unclear. I think you are saying that someone must have been diagnosed with asthma to participate in your survey. Is this correct? You might consider re-working the survey so that the "PLEASE DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON THIS SURVEY" and questions 2 and 3 are all together as a heading at the top of the survey and then have question 1 as the first question of the survey. It might look something like this:

This survey will take 10-15 minutes to complete. Please do not put your name on this survey. Remember that your answers to these questions are completely confidential; no one will know what answers you put because your name is not included in the survey.
---------------------------
1. Have you been diagnosed with asthma Yes 0 No 0.

If you answered "Yes" to question 1, please continue to answer the rest of the questions on this survey. If you answered "No" to question 1, please return to survey to the proctor.
-------------------------

1. What grade are you in?
0 9th 0 10th 0 11th 0 12th

2. How long have you had Asthma (since diagnosed by doctor)?
0 A few months 01-2 years 02-4 years 0 4-6 years 0 6 years & up

3. On a scale of 1 to 10 how persistent are your asthma attacks? (1 being less frequent, 10 most frequent)
.
4. Do you believe that stress is a trigger for your asthma attacks? 0 yes 0no

5. How many times do you have to take your rescue inhaler?
0 Daily 0weekly 0Monthly 0 Yearly

These seem to be good, clear questions. As a general rule, answers to questions that ask people to recall past events (such as when they were diagnosed with asthma) are often inaccurate because people's memories are not perfect. My only two comments would be to consider rephrasing 2 to simply say "How long ago were you diagnosed with asthma?" and replaced "many times" in 5 with "often".

6. Unfortunately, through all of the teacher’s warnings you have waited to the last minute to study for a major exam in one of your classes. Actually, you have waited until the night before, so in that case do you believe that you would feel your chest tighten or any other asthma symptoms?
0 yes 0no

7. Let’s say you get your report and in one of your classes you have a horrible grade of 54. While thinking “Oh my gosh, how did this happen” on top of “My parents are going to kill me” do you think you would feel any asthma symptoms?
0yes 0no

I think that using scenarios like these are a good way of investigating how asthma may be related to potentially stressful school-related situations. The wording of 6 might be a little confusing because you are essentially saying the same thing twice. Consider combining some ideas, such as "Unfortunately, despite all of your teacher's reminders, you have waited until to night before to study for a major exam in one of your classes. Do you believe that if you were in this situation you would experience any asthma symptoms?"

8. Do you have any other diseases or health problems? 0 yes 0no
a.) If yes please list:

9. Do you have any allergies? 0 yes 0 no

The questions are clear, but I would suggest getting rid of 8a. This is getting into the territory of very personal health information. Sticking with a "yes" or "no" should suffice.

10. How many sports or extracurricular activities do you participate in?
0 0-1 0 1-2 02-4 05 or more

11. Do you hold an office in any of the activities? 0 yes 0 no

12. How many clubs do you participate in?
0 0-1 0 1-2 0 2-4 0 5 or more

13. Do you hold an office in any of these clubs? 0 yes 0 no

14. How many AP classes do you participate in?
0 0-1 0 1-2 0 2-4 0 5 or more

15. On a scale of 1-10 how much do you care about your grades? ( 1 being “ Eh, academics aren’t everything” , 10 being “ I would die if I got an F”)
.
16. Do you plan on going to college? 0 Definitely 0 Nope 0 Maybe

17. What type of college?

0Ivy League and private
0Public, Ivy League
0 Public, regular

These ones are very nice. In 11 and 13, you might consider replacing "Do you hold an office" with "Are you an officer". In 14, think about replacing "do you participate in" with "are you taking". If you ask "do you participate in", some people may think you are asking about how many AP classes they answer questions and contribute to class discussions in. In 17, I would suggest reworking the choices you have. First of all, you have completely neglected 2-year schools and community colleges, options that many students consider. Second,there are no public Ivy League schools. Consider instead simply "4-year private school", "4-year public school", "2-year or community college", and "Trade or vocational school".

These questions are from an official survey given by the American Lung Association.
1. In the past 4 weeks, how much of the time did your asthma keep you from getting as much done at work, school or at home?
0 all the time 0 most of the time 0some of the time 0a little of the time 0none of the time

2. During the past 4 weeks, how often have you had shortness of breath?
0 more than once a day 0 once a day 03 to 6 times a week 0Once or twice a week 0Not at all
3. During the past 4 weeks, how often did your asthma symptoms (wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath, chest tightness or pain) wake you up at night or earlier than usual in the morning?
04 or more nights a week 02 or 3 nights a week 0Once a week 0once or twice 0Not at all
4. During the past 4 weeks, how often have you used your rescue inhaler or nebulizer medication (such as albuterol)?
03 or more times per day 01 or 2 times per day 02 or 3 times per week 0once a week or less
0Not at all
5. How would you rate your asthma control during the past 4 weeks?
0Not controlled at all 0Poorly controlled 0 Somewhat controlled 0Well controlled
0Completely controlled

These are excellent; including such questions in your survey adds credence to it. You might consider deleting the heading that reads "These questions are from an official survey given by the American Lung Association". Seeing this might cause your respondents to believe there is some sort of inherent difference in the questions or that the other questions aren't as important. This effect could bias your results. By deleting the heading, you remove this potentially problematic effect. You know that these questions are from an ALA survey, but the people taking your survey don't necessarily need to.

I hope I haven't bogged you down in too many details! What you have accomplished really is great work; I'm nitpicking to point out things that can be improved Definitely be proud of what you have done because I can tell that you have put a huge amount of thought and effort into this survey; it is much, much better than most of the ones that I have seen done by science fair participants.

Let us know if you have questions; good luck on your project - you are doing great!

Thank you for the feedback I will revise my survey and post it back up for more critique. I am not totally sure how to choose the people to take my survey. Can you give me tips on how to choose people and keep my participants from being biased?

Here is the revised survey. There is a line after 1a where the real survey begins. Should I include any more questions to try to be more concrete when I try to analyze the students stress levels?

• This survey will take around 10-15 min.
• Please do not put your name on this survey.
• Remember that your answers to these questions are completely confidential; no will know what you put because your name is not included in the survey.

1. Have you been diagnosed with asthma? 0 Yes 0 No
1a. if you have answered yes please continue with the survey. If you have answered no, please return the survey to the proctor.


1. What grade are you in?
0 9th 0 10th 0 11th 0 12th
2. How long ago were you diagnosed with asthma?
0 A few months 01-2 years 02-4 years 0 4-6 years 0 6 years & up
3. On a scale of 1 to 10 how persistent are your asthma attacks? (1 being less frequent, 10 most frequent)
.
4. Do you believe that stress is a trigger for your asthma attacks? 0 yes 0no
5. How often do you have to take your rescue inhaler?
0 Daily 0weekly 0Monthly 0 Yearly
6. Unfortunately, despite all of your teacher’s reminders, you have waited until the night before to study for a major exam in one of your classes. Do you believe that if you were in this situation you would experience any asthma symptoms?
0 yes 0no
7. Let’s say you get your report and in one of your classes you have a horrible grade of 54. While thinking “Oh my gosh, how did this happen” on top of “My parents are going to kill me” do you think you would feel any asthma symptoms?
0yes 0no
8. Do you have any other diseases or health problems? 0 Yes 0No
9. Do you have any allergies? 0 yes 0 no
10. How many sports or extracurricular activities do you participate in?
0 0-1 0 1-2 02-4 05 or more
11. Are you an officer? 0 yes 0 no
12. How many clubs do you participate in?
0 0-1 0 1-2 0 2-4 0 5 or more
13. Are you an officer? 0 yes 0 no
14. Are you taking any AP or Dual Credit courses?
0 0-1 0 1-2 0 2-4 0 5 or more
15. On a scale of 1-10 how much do you care about your grades? ( 1 being “ Eh, academics aren’t everything” , 10 being “ I would die if I got an F”)
.
16. Do you plan on going to college? 0 Definitely 0 Nope 0 Maybe
17. What type of college?
0 4-year private school
0 4-year public school
0 2-year or community college
0 Trade or Vocational school

1. In the past 4 weeks, how much of the time did your asthma keep you from getting as much done at work, school or at home?
0 all the time 0 most of the time 0some of the time 0a little of the time 0none of the time

2. During the past 4 weeks, how often have you had shortness of breath?
0 more than once a day 0 once a day 03 to 6 times a week 0Once or twice a week 0Not at all
3. During the past 4 weeks, how often did your asthma symptoms (wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath, chest tightness or pain) wake you up at night or earlier than usual in the morning?
04 or more nights a week 02 or 3 nights a week 0Once a week 0once or twice 0Not at all

4. During the past 4 weeks, how often have you used your rescue inhaler or nebulizer medication (such as albuterol)?
03 or more times per day 01 or 2 times per day 02 or 3 times per week 0once a week or less
0Not at all
5. How would you rate your asthma control during the past 4 weeks?
0Not controlled at all 0Poorly controlled 0 Somewhat controlled 0Well controlled
0Completely controlled

This version looks much improved! You have taken what was already good and made it better; keep up the good work! I can tell that you are putting a lot of effort into the project and that effort will pay off.

Should I include any more questions to try to be more concrete when I try to analyze the students stress levels?

That is really up to you. Do you feel that the questions you have on the survey right now provide you enough information to determine whether there is a correlation between students' stress levels and asthma attacks? If not, go ahead and develop some more questions to give you more data. Your survey is not unduly long, so I don't think adding a few more questions is not going to negatively impact the number of people who will choose to take your survey. Based on what I see in the survey as you have it currently, you could, among other things assess (1) whether or not people believe that stress is a trigger for their asthma attacks and (2) gauge how people believe their asthma symptoms would be affected by two potentially stressful situations. These factors can then be compare and evaluated in the context of several other variables, such as the duration of diagnosis, grade level, presence of other health problems, participation in extracurriculars, particpation in AP classes, etc. You certainly do not have a shortage of relationships to examine!

Keep in mind as you analyze your data you cannot prove that stress causes asthma symptoms or that participation in extracurriculars causes higher rates of emergency inhaler use, etc.; you can only show a correlation between variables. Correlation does not imply causation. This means that just because you find that two things have a relationship, that relationship is not necessarily one of cause and effect. Lurking variables are often present. This PowerPoint (www.unc.edu/~zhuz/teaching/Stat31/Notes/Lec11bb.ppt ) explains some things you should keep in mind as you analyze your data.

I am not totally sure how to choose the people to take my survey. Can you give me tips on how to choose people and keep my participants from being biased?

This is an excellent question - one that most students ignore when doing a survey-based science fair project, so kudos to you for considering how to choose your sample. The first step to take when working out how to collect your data is to define the population of interest. That is, you need to define the group that you are trying to draw conclusions about. Are you interested in the relationship between asthma symptoms and stress in high school students? Among 18-24 year old? Among the elderly? Among elementary school-aged children? The population of the entire US? Among migrant farmworkers?, etc. Do you see the point that I am trying to make? In order to decide how to choose who takes your survey, you need to first define the population you are trying to draw conclusions about. Since the people you have easy access to are high school-aged,I would suggest defining your population as "high school students". If you are only going to have people from your school participate, then you might need to refine the definition of your population to be "high school students at my high school". If you determine that your population is "high school students at X High School", the the conclusions will all refer to X High School. For example "I found strong evidence suggesting a correlation between the duration a high school student at X High School has been diagnosed with asthma and his or her belief that stress influences their asthma symptoms.This study suggests that a similar correlation may be found at among other high school students, but further research is needed to study the possibility that this same trend is found among high school students across the US." Do you see how you can suggest that a similar trend might be found in other groups similar to your population, but you cannot say for sure that the same trend is found in other groups?

I discussed some of these same issues in another message topic with a different student. That message topic is found here: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... cfb#p15420. Take a look at it and let me know if you have questions about the considerations discussed in it and how to apply those principles to your project.

Keep up the good work!

Okay this is my final draft before showing it to my teachers so please critique away!

• This survey will take around 10-15 min.
• Please do not put your name on this survey.
• Remember that your answers to these questions are completely confidential; no will know what you put because your name is not included in the survey.

1. Have you been diagnosed with asthma? 0 Yes 0 No
1a. if you have answered yes please continue with the survey. If you have answered no, please return the survey to the proctor.

1. What grade are you in?
0 9th 0 10th 0 11th 0 12th
2. How long ago were you diagnosed with asthma?
0 A few months 01-2 years 02-4 years 0 4-6 years 0 6 years & up
3. On a scale of 1 to 10 how persistent are your asthma attacks? (1 being less frequent, 10 most frequent)
.
4. Do you believe that stress is a trigger for your asthma attacks? 0 yes 0no
5. How often do you have to take your rescue inhaler?
0 Daily 0weekly 0Monthly 0 Yearly
6. Unfortunately, despite all of your teacher’s reminders, you have waited until the night before to study for a major exam in one of your classes. Do you believe that if you were in this situation you would experience any asthma symptoms?
0 yes 0no
7. Are your triggers usually allergies like cat dander, pollen or dust or are your triggers more into the lines of more natural factors like extreme cold, pollutants or even hard laughing?

.

8. Let’s say you get your report and in one of your classes you have a horrible grade of 54. While thinking “Oh my gosh, how did this happen” on top of “My parents are going to kill me” do you think you would feel any asthma symptoms?
0yes 0no
9. Do you have any other diseases or health problems? 0 Yes 0No
10. Do you have any allergies? 0 yes 0 no
11. How many sports or extracurricular activities do you participate in?
0 0-1 0 1-2 02-4 05 or more
12. Are you an officer? 0 yes 0 no
13. How many clubs do you participate in?
0 0-1 0 1-2 0 2-4 0 5 or more
14. Are you an officer? 0 yes 0 no
15. Are you taking any AP, Pre-AP or Dual Credit courses?
0 0-1 0 1-2 0 2-4 0 5 or more
16. On a scale of 1-10 how much do you care about your grades? ( 1 being “ Eh, academics aren’t everything” , 10 being “ I would die if I got a C”)
.
17. Do you plan on going to college? 0 Definitely 0 Nope 0 Maybe
18. What type of college?
0 4-year private school
0 4-year public school
0 2-year or community college
0 Trade or Vocational school

1. In the past 4 weeks, how much of the time did your asthma keep you from getting as much done at work, school or at home?
0 all the time 0 most of the time 0some of the time 0a little of the time 0none of the time

2. During the past 4 weeks, how often have you had shortness of breath?
0 more than once a day 0 once a day 03 to 6 times a week 0Once or twice a week 0Not at all
3. During the past 4 weeks, how often did your asthma symptoms (wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath, chest tightness or pain) wake you up at night or earlier than usual in the morning?
04 or more nights a week 02 or 3 nights a week 0Once a week 0once or twice 0Not at all

4. During the past 4 weeks, how often have you used your rescue inhaler or nebulizer medication (such as albuterol)?
03 or more times per day 01 or 2 times per day 02 or 3 times per week 0once a week or less
0Not at all
5. How would you rate your asthma control during the past 4 weeks?
0Not controlled at all 0Poorly controlled 0 Somewhat controlled 0Well controlled
0Completely controlled

This looks very nice. You have put some serious effort into this and it really shows. You should be proud of what you've done! It really is exceptional for someone to focus to extensively on developing a meaningful observational study/survey project. Good work! I've put some final (and honestly rather nit-picky) comments in the text itself; they are in bold.

------------------------------------------------------------------

• This survey will take around 10-15 min.
• Please do not put your name on this survey.
• Remember that your answers to these questions are completely confidential; no will know what you put because your name is not included in the survey.

1. Have you been diagnosed with asthma? 0 Yes 0 No
1a. if you have answered yes please continue with the survey. If you have answered no, please return the survey to the proctor.

1. What grade are you in?
0 9th 0 10th 0 11th 0 12th
2. How long ago were you diagnosed with asthma?
0 A few months 01-2 years 02-4 years 0 4-6 years 0 6 years & up
3. On a scale of 1 to 10 how persistent are your asthma attacks? (1 being less frequent, 10 most frequent)
.
4. Do you believe that stress is a trigger for your asthma attacks? 0 yes 0no
5. How often do you have to take your rescue inhaler?
0 Daily 0weekly 0Monthly 0 Yearly

NOTE: I would add a small introduction to this section saying something like: "The following questions give some scenarios that might affect your asthma. Please think about them and select the most appropriate response."

6. Unfortunately, despite all of your teacher’s reminders, you have waited until the night before to study for a major exam in one of your classes. Do you believe that if you were in this situation you would experience any asthma symptoms?
0 yes 0no.

8. Let’s say you get your report and in one of your classes you have a horrible grade of 54. While thinking “Oh my gosh, how did this happen” on top of “My parents are going to kill me” do you think you would feel any asthma symptoms?
0yes 0no

7. Are your triggers usually allergies like cat dander, pollen or dust or are your triggers more into the lines of more natural factors like extreme cold, pollutants or even hard laughing? NOTE: I WOULD MOVE THIS QUESTION HERE SO THAT THE TWO SCENARIO QUESTIONS ARE TOGETHER

9. Do you have any other diseases or health problems? 0 Yes 0No
10. Do you have any allergies? 0 yes 0 no
11. How many sports or extracurricular activities do you participate in?
0 0-1 0 1-2 02-4 05 or more
NOTE: I DELETED QUESTION 12 BECAUSE IT WAS THE SAME AS QUESTION 14.
13. How many clubs do you participate in?
0 0-1 0 1-2 0 2-4 0 5 or more
14. Are you an officer? 0 yes 0 no
15. Are you taking any AP, Pre-AP or Dual Credit courses?
0 0-1 0 1-2 0 2-4 0 5 or more
16. On a scale of 1-10 how much do you care about your grades? ( 1 being “ Eh, academics aren’t everything” , 10 being “ I would die if I got a C”)
.
17. Do you plan on going to college? 0 Definitely 0 Nope 0 Maybe
18. What type of college?
0 4-year private school
0 4-year public school
0 2-year or community college
0 Trade or Vocational school

1. In the past 4 weeks, how much of the time did your asthma keep you from getting as much done at work, school or at home?
0 all the time 0 most of the time 0some of the time 0a little of the time 0none of the time

2. During the past 4 weeks, how often have you had shortness of breath?
0 more than once a day 0 once a day 03 to 6 times a week 0Once or twice a week 0Not at all
3. During the past 4 weeks, how often did your asthma symptoms (wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath, chest tightness or pain) wake you up at night or earlier than usual in the morning?
04 or more nights a week 02 or 3 nights a week 0Once a week 0once or twice 0Not at all

4. During the past 4 weeks, how often have you used your rescue inhaler or nebulizer medication (such as albuterol)?
03 or more times per day 01 or 2 times per day 02 or 3 times per week 0once a week or less
0Not at all
5. How would you rate your asthma control during the past 4 weeks?
0Not controlled at all 0Poorly controlled 0 Somewhat controlled 0Well controlled
0Completely controlled

------------------------------------------------------

Other than those couple of comments, I think it's great! Good luck on your project; keep us updated so that we can continue to help you.