Scientific method Flashcards
Observation
An observation is when you are using your 5 senses (vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste)
Inference
assumptions on a certain thing using prior knowledge
Independent variable
the only variable that is DELIBERATELY changed (e.g. water that one of the plants get)
Dependent variable
measured throughout the experiment (what changes in response to the IV) (e.g. the height of each of the plants)
Controlled variable
variable kept constant through an experiment (e.g. the amount of soil)
hypothesis
A hypothesis an informed prediction to a scientific question
Qualitative
variables that are not measured by other variables
ordinal
has an order (e.g. biggest to smallest or colours)
Nominal
a variable with no numerical value
Quantitative
variables whose values result from counting or measuring something
discrete
(e.g. counting amount of red cars in a parking lot) can’t take on any other variables (e.g. 3.5 shoe size is not possible)
continuous
(e.g. 3.5 shoe size) infinite set of values
Accuracy
how close the measurement is to the true value
precision
how close the measurements are to each other
reproducibility
contain consistent results when repeated by other operators (it shows if there are systematic errors too)
