AIM - What
are you going to investigate?
HYPOTHESIS
- What do you think you will find?
Why?
- What relationships will
be demonstrated, in your opinion? Why?
THEORY
- Background information you need to know
to understand and complete the practical. (Must be appropriately cited/referenced)
METHOD
- Identify independent and dependent variables.
- Independent - what are you purposely
changing?
- Dependent - what
are you measuring?
- Identify
other possible variables. How will you control them?
- To
be a fair test, only the independent and dependent variables should change.
- Dependent
- what are you measuring?
- List
the materials that you will use.
- Describe
the steps that you will take.
- Include
a diagram.
DIAGRAM
- Include a diagram as part of the method
or results (which ever is most appropriate).
- Must
be/have
- well-labeled
- hand-drawn
- in
pencil
- relevant
- large
- no/minimal
shading
- straight lines ruled
RESULTS
- Perform the experiment.
- Record
all observations and measurements.
- Organise
results into tables and graphs, where appropriate.
- Determine
which kind of graph, if any, is appropriate. Draw and label (independent
- horizontal; dependent - vertical).
DISCUSSION
- What do the results show?
- Is
there a relationship between the variables? Describe any trends.
- Do
any of the results appear to be inconsistent? Can you think of a reason
why?
- Were there any sources
of error during the experiment? What effect could they have had?
- How
could the experiment design be improved to reduce error and/or get better results?
- Can
you think of a real-life use or example of these results?
CONCLUSION
- Was your hypothesis confirmed, supported
or refuted? (note: you cannot prove something correct with one experiment!)
- Overall,
what did your results show (generalise)?
|
