AP Research Week 10: Analyzing The Correlation Between Time Spent Being Outdoors To Prevalence Of Myopia

Hello everyone!

Welcome back to the blog! This week I will be talking about the correlation between time spent being outdoors to the prevalence of myopia that was found within my study. Next week, I will be doing an in-depth analysis on the correlation between diet and myopia in order to correct my previous analysis.

The amount of time spent outdoors is another crucial method for gauging one’s visual acuity. However, contradictory to the findings in Sherwin et al, 2012, and Lee, Lo, & Lin, 2013, the results of this study have shown that time spent outdoors and the prevalence of myopia have a weak association (correlation coefficient: 0.136), and no statistical significance was found ( p > 0.05). This finding is interesting because pre-existing research has found that spending more time being outdoors decreases the likelihood of developing myopia, which overall decreases its prevalence (Sherwin et al., 2012; Lee, Lo & Lin, 2013). This means that although this study found no significant correlation between myopia and outdoor activities, this does not rule out that outdoor activity may have a protective effect against myopia. Although this implication may not necessarily disprove the hypothesis, there are a few potential explanations as to why there was no significant association. One reason for this could be that there was no specific time frame included within the question, which could have led participants to incorrectly input their hours. Another possible constituent is that participants may not have included mundane tasks such as walking to school or walking a pet as outdoor activity, which may have made individuals report less amount of time spent outdoors. Both of the reasons mentioned could have significantly altered the results of the survey.

That’s it for this week. Next week I will be wrapping up the analysis!