Who's the Fittest?
3rd period, Mallory Langford & Rishika Katamneni
Question
Does grade level impact how physically active students are?
Hypothesis
Sophomores will spend more time doing physical activity than seniors.
Parts of the Experiment
- Experimental Groups: sophomores and seniors
- Independent Variable: grade level
- Dependent Variable: hours spent working out per day
- Control: none
- Factors that were held constant include using identical phrasing in questions.
Data
Bar Graphs
Analysis
When comparing the two grade levels of sophomores and seniors in high school, then there is no significance between the two grade levels and the hours of physical activity daily. Originally the experimenters hypothesized that the sophomores would spend more time being physically active in high school, since athletic credit is needed to graduate and to get into college. However, the statistical evidence is enough to accept the null hypothesis. When the T-TEST was performed, the p value was large and greater than 0.05, so the null hypothesis was not rejected as intended. Even though originally it was assumed by both experimenters that sophomores would more likely be more physically active, it is reasonable to accept the fact that grade level has no impact because according to different locations and the schools there, the results may be different.
Conclusion
When comparing sophomores and seniors, there is no significant difference between the amount of hours spent daily on physical activity.
Sources of Inaccuracies/Errors
Since there were two different experimenters, the results could have altered slightly if one were to have made a mistake when asking questions from the questionnaire to the test subjects. Also since the results showed that the independent variable (two different grade levels in high school: sophomores and seniors) does not affect the results, then there could have been a mistake when collecting data. The variance of asking randomly could have altered the data as well, since the experimenter could have asked specifically only those who are less physically active or only those who are mostly physically active.
Bibliography
Dentro, Kara. "The 2014 United States Report Card on Physcial Acitvity For Children & Youth." PHYSICAL ACTIVITY FOR CHILDREN & YOUTH(2014): 11-13. Kids Data. National Physical Activity Plan. Web. 07 Sept. 2015. <https://www.informz.net/acsm/data/images/NationalReportCard_longform_final%20for%20web%282%29.pdf>.