For example: If you are a lab technician, and you run ten tests, and seven of the results are identical, but three of them are completely different, what are the guidelines to what you should do if you are giving a presentation on the results in order to secure funding? Can you leave out and ignore the three erroneous results, or is that generally bad practice. Do you know any websites where I can find information on such guidelines?
2007-01-13 00:32:10 · 4 answers · asked by Katrina W 2 in Education & Reference ➔ Standards & Testing
Check out the office of research integrity website. I forget the address exactly but just use a search engine and you'll find it.
If you just exclude data just because it doesn't fit what you thought it would than that is BAD. Scientists have gotten fired and banned from ever getting any government funding for doing this. Not having "pretty" results shouldn't get you turned down for money if you make a good case for what you want to research. The only way to get rid of data points is if you can prove that they are not part of a representative sample.
2007-01-13 18:13:54 · answer #1 · answered by hoktauri 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Im not a scientist, but I would imagine that you must not ignore any results just becuase you don't like that they don't agree with the outcome you want. Imagine what that would be like for medicine companies and side effects of drugs.. if they ignored the potential damaging ones only because they happened less than positive it could be dangerous for the public.
The only question that I would ask you is if you had a control group that you could compare all of your results against... if not then run the tests a final time, report all the results good and bad, then maybe offer a hypothesis for these conclusions...maybe one that can be tested in the future.
Unfortunately I do not know what the test is about and cannot give any pratical ideas.
Good luck.
2007-01-13 08:46:53 · answer #2 · answered by dmfitz00 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Scientific researches usually have a control group and an experimental group. You should be able to manipulate the variables. Report all results because they are signficant. For further information, try this website:
WRITING A SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ARTICLE
Scientific research articles provide a method for scientists to communicate with other scientists about the results of their research. ...
www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/ug/research/paper.html
2007-01-13 11:40:37 · answer #3 · answered by ? 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Mainly it depends on the experiment. Scientific guidelines are based upon philosophical theories like Popper's theory of fallibility's.
2007-01-13 08:42:56 · answer #4 · answered by Allan 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋