Author’s Note: This was written after our Science Group conducted an experiment that at the time we thought was well thought out and successful. Shortly after the fact, we realized that to administrate a clean and concrete experiment we should have done things differently. This piece is a reflection of the plan we decided to put into action.
In hopes of answering the question, ‘Which size athlete is most effective in basketball,’ we conducted multiple test scenarios that we thought would give us a better understanding of what really is an ideal size for an athlete in basketball. In reflection after the tests were finished, our group came to a conclusion that many of the aspects in our laid back experiment could and should have been done in other ways.
Our original idea for this experiment was to take real scenarios from games and recreate those situations that put “bigs” against “littles” and vise-versa. Before the filming began, we somewhat scratched the surface of the scientific process when we created a hypothesis, but nonetheless, we needed to have gone more into depth throughout the entire experiment.
Throughout the experiment, we ran into many obstacles and found flaws, but especially towards the end we started to realize that the results we collected weren’t completely correct. Instead of taking a lax approach to the whole project, we needed to lay out what we were going to be focusing on from the beginning. A huge flaw we found after the fact was how much the scientific process comes into play and that if you’re going to use it, the entire process should run smoother and be more concrete.
When we came into the experiment, a more organized plan was needed. To have made the experiment accurate, we could have followed through with the scientific process. This means using ‘PHEOC,’ identifying the problem, creating a hypothesis, putting together the experimental design, making our observations, and finally coming to a conclusion. Making only a hypothesis, one small part of the process isn’t sufficient enough, which is the only piece our group followed through on. Although following the scientific process may have been more work, in the end it would have made our experiment cleaner and overall more definite.
Along with any sort of test there are always variables, also a large part in the scientific process. There are constants, repeated trials and control, all aspects that we needed to define and incorporate into our experiment . In our specific case, the independent variable would be how we switched who was on offense and defense each test run. The parts of our experiment were not all that difficult to identify, but if we would have realized these pieces played a major role in our experiment, the result could have turned out completely different.
Looking back on the tests we did, in all there were many parts and pieces that should have been done in a different manner. In simple terms, if another experiment was to be done I would make sure the first thing I did was follow the scientific process. Additionally, knowing what you want your end result to be can drive you to get the most on point results and an overall excellent experiment.
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