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Increasing phone use before sleep leads to a decrease in sleep.Īir temperature does not correlate with soil respiration. Phone use before sleep does not correlate with the amount of sleep a person gets. Now that you have a strong conceptual understanding of the system you are studying, you should be able to write a specific, testable hypothesis that addresses your research question. Here we predict that increasing temperature will increase soil respiration and decrease soil moisture, while decreasing soil moisture will lead to decreased soil respiration.

Here we predict that the amount of phone use will have a negative effect on hours of sleep, and predict an unknown influence of natural variation on hours of sleep. Use arrows to show the possible relationships between variables and include signs to show the expected direction of the relationships. Soil moisture also affects respiration, and moisture can decrease with increasing temperature.Ĭontrol experimentally: monitor soil moisture and add water to make sure that soil moisture is consistent across all treatment plots.įinally, you can put these variables together into a diagram. Natural variation in sleep patterns among individuals.Ĭontrol statistically: measure the average difference between sleep with phone use and sleep with phone use rather than the average amount of sleep per treatment group. Then you need to think about possible extraneous and confounding variables and consider how you might control them in your experiment.

Research questionĪir temperature just above the soil surface Start by simply listing the independent and dependent variables. To translate your research question into an experimental hypothesis, you need to define the main variables and make predictions about how they are related. Specifically, you ask how increased air temperature near the soil surface affects the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) respired from the soil. Example question 2: Temperature and soil respirationYou want to know how temperature affects soil respiration. Specifically, you ask how the number of minutes a person uses their phone before sleep affects the number of hours they sleep. We will work with two research question examples, one from health sciences and one from ecology: Example question 1: Phone use and sleepYou want to know how phone use before bedtime affects sleep patterns. You should begin with a specific research question. If if random assignment of participants to control and treatment groups is impossible, unethical, or highly difficult, consider an observational study instead.

Plan how you will measure your dependent variableįor valid conclusions, you also need to select a representative sample and control any extraneous variables that might influence your results.

Assign subjects to groups, either between-subjects or within-subjects.

Design experimental treatments to manipulate your independent variable.

Consider your variables and how they are related.

There are five key steps in designing an experiment: A good experimental design requires a strong understanding of the system you are studying. You manipulate one or more independent variables and measure their effect on one or more dependent variables.Įxperimental design means creating a set of procedures to systematically test a hypothesis. Guide to Experimental Design | Overview, 5 steps & ExamplesĮxperiments are used to study causal relationships.