3.3 Reporting and Critical Evaluation of Biological Research

Question 1

What is Qualitative Data?

Answer 1

Subjective and descriptive e.g the colour of leaf, softness of fur

Question 2

What is Quantitative Data?

Answer 2

Can be measured with a numerical value e.g concentration of solution, time

Question 3

What is Ranked Data?

Answer 3

Numerical values are replaced by their rank and sorted from lowest to highest e.d dominance hierarchy in animals

Question 4

What do Box Plots show?

Answer 4

These can be used to show the variation within and between data sets

Question 5

What is Correlation?

Answer 5

This is an association and does not imply causation

Question 6

What is Positive Correlation?

Answer 6

This exists when an increase in one variable is accompanied by an increase in another variable

Question 7

What is Negative Correlation?

Answer 7

This exists when an increase in one variable is accompanied by a decrease in the other variable

Question 8

What is a Statistically Significant result?

Answer 8

This is a result that is unlikely to be due to chance alone

Question 9

How can you tell if a result was statistically significant from the error bars alone?

Answer 9

If the error bars do no overlap, then the results are significantly different
If the error bars do overlap, then the results are not significantly different