AP Courses Taking Away Sleep?
By: Nikhil Pentakota and Zaid Albarmawi
Question
Hypothesis
Type of investigation
Parts of the Experiment
Independent Variable- Amount of sleep that a student gets on the weekdays during the school year
Control- None
Experimental Group- Juniors and Seniors at Coppell High School
Factors Held Constant- 25 total students and Students at Coppell High School
Data Table
Bar Graphs
Analysis
A student taking 4 or more AP courses will get fewer hours of sleep compared to the students who took 3 or less AP courses. According to the results taken during the experiment the average about of sleep a student with 3 or less ap courses was 8.25 hours of sleep every night, whereas the average amount of sleep a student with 4 or more ap courses was 6.30. When a t-test was taken in the experiment the p-value was 0.00010, which means the results shows a significant difference between 3 or less AP courses and 4 or more AP courses taken by a student since the p-value is lower than 0.05. When making the bar graphs and calculating both SEM and 2 SEM values the 2 SEM values do not have a range of the same numbers, proving againt that there is significant difference between 3 or less AP courses and 4 or more AP courses taken by a student on the weekdays during the school year. The reason for students that take a 4 or more AP courses get fewer amounts of sleep than students with 3 or less AP courses is due to the fact that the workload is so much more for a student taking 4 or more AP courses. According to the CFAH(Center For Advancing Health) students that are taking many AP courses tend to stay up later than the average student and this affects students' circadian rhythm causing them to get a sleep deprivation, which can harm many students. These classes are college level courses, so it would be reasonable that theses students have more workload the more of the courses the students take during the school year.
Conclusion
The hypothesis was supported. Students with 3 or less AP courses have gotten a greater amount of sleep compared to the amount of sleep a student taking 4 or more AP courses.
Sources of Errors and Inaccuracies
The aspect of the experiment that might have caused the results to be invaild would be the AP courses a student takes is either very easy or very hard. An example would be a student taking courses such as AP biology, AP physics, or AP U.S. history and a student taking AP Human Geography, AP psychology, or AP world history. The students that are taking Ap biology, physics, and U.S. history would have a lot harder time, because those classes have a lot more work load and are very tough courses. Whereas the students taking AP psychology, human geography, or world history would have a lot less workload, because those classes have a lot less work load and are fairly simple courses. Another aspect would be the type of student; there may be students that are just plain geniuses and said they get a lot of sleep even though they are taking 4 or more AP courses. There could also be student that is very lazy and is taking 3 or less AP courses and finds the courses very tough.
Bibliography
"Designing a Scientific Questionnaire." Coppell. 1 Sept. 2015. Lecture.
"Graphing." 3 Sept. 2015. Lecture.
"Most High School Students Are Sleep Deprived." Most High School Students Are Sleep Deprived. Web. 9 Sept. 2015.