Key Science Skills

Question 1

What is Subjective? Advantage and Disadvantage ?

Answer 1

data that can’t be measured and comes from feelings, experiences, opinions, and thoughts.

Advantage: provide a much broader range of information.

Disadvantage: subjective data is harder to verify, so it’s usually considered less reliable than objective data.

Question 2

What is Objective? What are the strengths and limitations?

Answer 2

Objective data is factual information that is gathered through observation or measurement that is accurate.

Strength: Gathering objective data requires that each participant go through the same set of tasks. This will give you more reliable and consistent data.

Limitation: Objective measures may not capture all aspects of what you’re trying to measure.

Question 3

What is Qualitative Data? What are the strengths and limitations?

Answer 3

Qualitative data describes qualities or characteristics.

Strength: Provide more detailed information to explain complex issues.

Limitation: More difficult to analyse; don’t fit neatly in standard categories

Question 4

What is Quantitative Data? What are the strengths and limitations?

Answer 4

measures of values or counts and are expressed as numbers.

Strengths: Data can be very consistent, precise and reliable and easy to analyse.

Limitation: Data may not be strong enough to explain complex issues.

Question 5

What is Primary Data? What are the strengths and limitations?

Answer 5

Data that has been generated by the researcher themselves.

Strength: can provide you with unique and original insights that may not be available from other sources.

Limitation: They can be time-consuming, costly, and labor-intensive to collect and analyze.

Question 6

What is Secondary Data? What are the strengths and limitations?

Answer 6

Using existing data generated by large government Institutions, healthcare facilities etc.

Strength: Reduces the time needed to complete the project.

Limitation: No control over data collection process.

Question 7

What is Measures of variability?

Answer 7

Describe the spread and distribution of a data set.

Question 8

How to calculate the Range?

Answer 8

highest value - lowest value

Question 9

What is standard deviation?

Answer 9

describes the spread of data around the mean

Question 10

Example of what you would see of standard deviation. Just to be read.

Answer 10

1. Set A = relatively low SD, results do not deviate much from the mean
2. Set B = higher SD, results deviate more from the mean
3. Can be represented numerically, higher number = more variance

Question 11

What is an Outlier?

Answer 11

A value that differs significantly from other values in a data set

Question 12

If the data set includes outliers, which type of measures of central tendency would you avoid using?

Answer 12

Mean is the only measure of central tendency that is always affected by an outlier.

Question 13

What is True Value?

Answer 13

the value, or range of values, that would be found if the quantity could be measured perfectly

Question 14

What is Accuracy?

Answer 14

how close a measurement is to the true value of the quantity being measured

Question 15

What is Precision?

Answer 15

how closely a set of measurement values agree with each other

Question 16

What type of graph would you use for Quantitative Data?

Answer 16

Histograms, Line graphs, and Scatter graphs are used for quantitative data.

Question 17

What type of graph would you use for Qualitative Data?

Answer 17

Pie charts and bar graphs are used for qualitative data.

Question 18

Is Qualitative Data usually discrete or continuous?

Answer 18

Qualitative data is usually described as discrete. But can be either.

Question 19

Is Quantitative Data usually discrete or continuous?

Answer 19

Quantitative Data is usually continuous. But can be either.