Article: Did you forget to do something? Did you make any mistakes during the process? Have you done multiple trials of each experiment? If you made mistakes, repeat the procedure until you can do it perfectly. If you are confident in your data, it is time to decipher it and draw some conclusions. You might be able to glance at your data and see if it supports or disproves your hypothesis, but understand that you can't make any firm conclusions until the data has been properly analyzed. A properly designed experiment will have replicates or multiple trials. You may have performed the experiment multiple times or you may have tested multiple items at the same time (example: tested battery length of 3 batteries from each brand or tested growth of 3 of the same plant under multiple growing conditions). The data from each of these replicates need to be averaged together and will represent one data point for that condition. To average the trials, add each trial together and then divide by the number of trials. For example, your 3 plants in low light may have grown 3.0 inches (7.6cm), 4.0 inches (10cm), and 3.5 inches (8.9cm), respectively. The average growth height for low light is (3+4+3.5)/3 = 3.5 in. Oftentimes, it is easier to see differences in the data when you make a visual graph. Generally, the independent variable is plotted on the x-axis (horizontal) and the dependent variable is on the y-axis (vertical). Bar graphs and line graphs are a great way to visualize your data. You can draw a graph by hand, but it looks much cleaner and more professional to make it on the computer. For our example, graph the light levels on the x-axis and the growth height on the y-axis. Give the graph a title and label the x-axis and y-axis. Be sure to include the proper units used (hrs, ft, in, days, etc). If you have multiple data sets on one graph, use a different symbol or color to represent them. Put a legend on the right side of the graph to identify what each symbol and color represents. Give the graph a title that tells you exactly which data are represented. For example, "Plant Growth Height in Various Levels of Light." Now that you have plotted your data, you should be able to easily see differences between your various conditions. At the elementary and middle school level, you can draw your conclusions simply by looking at the data. State whether the data support or disprove the hypothesis. Discuss changes you might make to the procedure or future studies you could do to further the study. At the high school level, you might be able to run some statistics on your data to see if there truly are significant differences between the independent variables.
What is a summary of what this article is about?
Review the data you have collected to see if it is complete. Average multiple trials together. Make a table or graph to represent your data. Label everything on the graph. Draw a conclusion.