The Wake-up Times of 11th Graders
Scientific Questionnaire | Dhathri Bobba & Srujan Esanakarra
Question
Is there a difference between the wake-up times of male and female high school juniors?
A Comparative Investigation
Hypothesis
Female high school juniors wake up earlier than do male high school juniors.
Questionnaire
What time must you be at school? (Do you have any before school activities or late arrival?)
If the answer to the question above is 8:20 AM without any before school activities or late arrival, then proceed with the questionnaire.
- Are you male or female?
- On an average school day, at what time do you wake up?
Parts of the Experiment
Independent Variable: Gender
Dependent Variable: Time when the subjects wake up
Control: None
Experimental Group: Coppell High School Male & Female Juniors
Subjects
Male and Female CHS Juniors w/o Zero Hour, Morning Athletics, or Late Arrival.
DATA
Range Error Bar Graph
2 SEM Error Bar Graph
Analysis
Female high school juniors wake up earlier in the morning than do male high school juniors. In the investigation, the average wake up of females was around 391 minutes after midnight, which is approximately at 6:31 AM. For males, the average wake up time was around 409 minutes after midnight, which is approximately 6:49 AM. This indicates that females do indeed wake up earlier than do males, as predicted with the hypothesis. Furthermore, a t-test on the data evaluated to a p-value of 0.029, which is well under the threshold of 0.05 to qualify the data sets as significantly different. The p-value justifies that the data collected is significant and that the independent variable, in this case gender, does affect the outcome. It corroborates the statement that gender affects the time of awakening of a high school junior. In turn, it allows the null hypothesis to be rejected thus supporting the hypothesis of this investigation that females wake up earlier than males. An interesting fact that supports these research finds is that teens, on average, have their body rhythms changed when they reach puberty. A teen before puberty will get sleepy about two hours earlier than when they start going through puberty and this change fades away eventually. This data supports the claim that girls wake up earlier than boys, primarily justified by the variance in the age at which the two genders hit puberty. Girls typically hit puberty far earlier than males. This means that the girls have probably already went through these changes that happen close to the beginning of puberty, while on the other hand, males might have just recently gone through these sleeping changes and may not have adjusted to them. This means that boys sleep later than girls, who have already adjusted to these new sleeping patterns. Girls have already went past this stage unlike boys, who have not yet adjusted to the new patterns; this results in a more haphazard sleep schedule for boys and provides the reason for why boys wake up later than girls. The later the boys goes to sleep, the later they will wake up. Thus, the investigation demonstrates and justifies that female high school juniors wake up earlier than do male high school juniors.
Conclusion
This investigation supports the hypothesis that female high school juniors wake up earlier than do male high school juniors. The data collected from the population of high school juniors at Coppell High School suggests and supports the assertion that gender affects the time at which one wakes up.
Sources of Inaccuracies/Errors
A possible inaccuracy of this experiment comes from the sleeping habits of certain people. Some people choose to stay up very late every day and wake up late to go to school; however, some people may decide to go to sleep a bit earlier than the others and wake up especially early to do their final amounts of studying or homework. Another source comes from the form of transportation that the students may use. Some people may live right next to the school so this could result in the specific person at hand waking up earlier than say a person who lives a few miles from the school and has to take a bus to get to it. Some people might also not eat breakfast so they will require less time to get ready for school which in turn results in more time they have to sleep.