In this video, we will discuss how to create your research question.
We will look at what a research question exactly is, how to use the initial ideas that
you brainstorm based on a previous video, and how to choose your variables.
Your research question is marked under the exploration criterion.
The research question simply asks, how does the independent variable affect the dependent
variable?
The independent variable is what you change, and the dependent variable is what you measure
in your experiment.
Let's see how to use your initial ideas for interests and hobbies to choose your variables
and to create your research question.
Your variables should be easy to work with.
In other words, you should be able to use basic lab equipment or even equipment at home
to carry out your experiment.
To help you find such variables, you can use this variable list.
Of course, you can use any other variable, just make sure that it's easy to measure.
Let's see how to create research questions using your interests and hobbies and the variables
list.
1.
Choose a specific area of interest, for example basketball.
2.
Choose two variables that are related to basketball, for instance the pressure in the ball and
bounce height, and 3.
Put them together into a research question.
How does the pressure of a basketball affect its bounce height?
Another example could be trains, mess and distance.
How does the mess of a train affect the distance travelled when the train rolls down a slope?
Finally, street music, height and frequency.
How does the height of the water in a glass affect the frequency of sound?
This is the research question that I will use in the example IA in this video series.
It came from watching a street musician play a glass xylophone.
These are all solid research questions, they should just be slightly refined later on.
Let's see a few quick examples for the physics topics ideas that you brainstormed.
Sound distance and intensity?
How does the distance from a sound source affect intensity?
Let's say you carried out a simple experiment in class to see how gravitational potential
energy is converted into kinetic energy.
You release the ball from different heights on a slope and you measure the distance travelled
by the ball.
You can slightly modify this experiment and work with the angle of the slope and the maximum
speed reached by the ball.
You can even change the ball to something else, for example a toy car.
The research question would be how does the angle of a slope affect the speed of the toy
car?
Finally, let's work with capacitors, temperature and capacitance.
How does the temperature around the capacitor affect its capacitance?
Again, these are solid research questions and we will see how to make them even better
in a later video.
This completes step one, action two, now you know how to create your research question.
In the next video, we will discuss how to think about and test your experiment.