Week 8: Findings, Graphs, and Next Steps

Welcome back to my blog. As the AP exams are coming to a close, I can now prioritize working on the Senior Project, which will be helpful as the final presentations are coming up quickly. Before I dive into my progress this week, I would like to briefly recap the previous state of my project. In week 6, I began administering my memory assessments and creating another draft of my abstract. I also continued administering surveys. This week, I began analyzing survey and memory assessment results and created graphs to represent my findings. 

In total, I received 62 survey responses from populations ranging from 5th grade to graduate school. I want to thank everyone who took part in this survey, whether I know you personally or not. I began analyzing my survey results by exporting data from Google Forms into a spreadsheet. I then grouped key variables together, including weeknight sleep duration and grades. Other examples include the level of STEM enjoyment and difficulty recalling STEM material. I then quantified all my data points through Likert Scales to make graphing easier. Lastly, I created scatterplots and pie charts from the data and drew preliminary conclusions. 

Linked are two examples of my graphs. The first figure (a scatterplot) illustrates the negative association between weeknight sleep duration and the relative difficulty recalling STEM material. The second figure is a pie chart that summarizes the perceived relative impact of sleep deprivation on different subjects. The Association Between Weeknight Sleep Duration and Difficulty Recalling STEM Material; Which Subject is More Affected by Sleep Deprivation.

A full analysis of my findings will be included in next week’s blog post. Similarly to survey responses, I received a total of 45 memory assessment results. While I am currently still analyzing results, preliminary findings suggest that STEM memory retention is more affected by sleep duration than Humanities retention. I will update you on the full results in a future blog post.

On this note, I will finalize memory assessment results next week. I will also begin drafting the findings, discussion, and conclusion sections, and revise all previously written sections of my final paper. See you next week!