Data Analysis

Statistics for Science Fair

Statistics is a scientist’s powerful ally. Used properly, statistics allows you to interpret the results of
your experiment and report conclusions with confidence. Applying statistical tools will dramatically
increase the quality of your science fair project.

1) Experimental design – To draw conclusions you must control as much as you can. The goal is to
make it so the only difference between your experimental units is the treatment.

You need replication – which means you have at least 15 replications of your treatments. 30 is even
better!

Use a random assignment of treatments – flip a coin, roll a die, use a random number generator on your
calculator to assign treatments.
Data Analysis
2) Data analysis – start with your data and graphs, then use numerical measures to characterize your
findings.
Categorical data – represent using bar graphs, pie charts, and two-way tables. Examples: hair color, eye
color, gender, what type of phone you have, breed of dogs
Quantitative data - represent using stemplots, dot plots, histograms, time plots. Examples: number of
siblings, height, number of Instagram followers, weighted GPA. Scatterplots can be used for comparing two
quantitative variables (height vs. weight)
Statistics – calculate the mean, median and standard deviation to describe the center and the spread of your
data. Describe the graphs as symmetric or skewed, unimodal, bimodal or multimodal. Are there outliers?
There are more statistical techniques for analyzing the relationship between two quantitative variables,
comparison of data from two groups or comparisons of categorical variables. I can help with those when
you get to that point!
Data Analysis
3) Clearly present your results using graphs and appropriate
language. The conclusion may be that there is no significant result!
This happens all the time, but you can still explain your process,
calculations and discuss what you might do differently to improve
the experiment!
Some examples….
STATISTICS FOR SCIENCE FAIR
HOW TO USE STATISTICS TO IMPROVE AND
ENHANCE YOUR SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT
HOURS OF BATTERY LIFE FOR 26 CELL PHONES CONSTANTLY
STREAMING VIDEO
DOT PLOT
HISTOGRAM

BOX PLOT