The scientific process: poster analysis

• Did the researcher use control groups/control data? Why are these needed? Are there cases where these are not needed?

• Does the project involve any ethical dilemmas that may have required the researcher to obtain special approval (e.g., human experimentation/animal testing)? When is ethical approval required?

• How has the researcher presented their data (e.g., tables/diagrams/images/figures, etc.)? Could they present their data in another way?

• How are their figure captions?

• How many experiments were conducted? Can it be said that the project’s data are statistically significant? Are more experiments needed? What determine whether or not the project’s data are statistically significant? Are there projects that do not require statistically significant data?

• Has the research question been answered? How?

• Are the conclusions supported by the collected data?

It might not always be possible to answer certain questions based solely on the information contained in a project’s poster. In such cases, consider why such information is missing and whether or not it should have been included.

After completing the above exercise, tbriefly present their conclusions in your groups to one another, perhaps followed by a class discussion. The primary focus of this whole-class discussion should be on the more deeply analytical questions written in italics (approx. 30 min.).