dand-tem3

=toc __How/If ____ Gender Affects the Ability to Read Jumbled Words __=

[[image:http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTZvw8GHAU4irQtVPKHrE4CbCO43-svsbxoZ3gOZyVOguCZIM2W width="116" height="116"]]
[|Baby+Boy+or+Girl.jpg]

Broad Question
Does gender affect the ability to read jumbled words?

Specific Question
Does one gender make less mistakes when reading jumbled words than the other?

//Independent Variable: //
Gender

//Dependent Variable: //
Mistakes Made (count)

//Variables That Need To Be Controlled://
Same Number of Gender Same Test Quiet Environment

Hypothesis
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">I hypothesize that females will make fewer mistakes when reading jumbled words.

//<span style="color: #00ff00; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Graph of Hypothesis //
<span style="color: #00ff00; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">

<span style="color: #42aff6; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Experimental Design
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">F or the science fair, I plan to conduct my experiment that will help me determine if one gender makes less mistakes when reading jumbled words than the other in my homeroom, the school library, and at my house. A total of twenty people will be involved in my experiment, ten males and ten females, but more if possible. Their roles will be test-takers, since I’ll be recording how many mistakes they’ll make while reading jumbled words. I plan on completing ten trials (possibly more if I end up having more subjects) in order to have enough information to make a reliable conclusion. I’ll record my data on a spreadsheet that’s printed out and then transfer the data to a computer. I’m going to document my experiment by counting the number of mistakes made while the subject is reading the paragraph of jumbled words. When they’re finished, I’ll record the total number of mistakes they made in my data table. Once I have gathered all of my information, I’m going to find the average number of mistakes made by each gender.

<span style="color: #42aff6; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">//Number Of Trials://
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">20(+)

//<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Number Of Subjects In Each trial: //
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">1

<span style="color: #42aff6; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//When data will be collected://
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Early February

//<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Number of Observations: //
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">20(+)

//<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Where will data be collected?: //
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">School and home

<span style="color: #f48d01; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Materials List
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1. 20 people (10 males and 10 females) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Jumbled Word Test <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3. Pencil(to record data) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">4. Data Table

<span style="color: #00ff00; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Detailed Procedure
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Create jumbled word test. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Gather a group of participants (10 males and 10 females.) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3. Give all the subjects under the age of 18 a permission slip signed by themselves and a parent/guardian and all the subjects over 18 a permission slip for just themselves to sign. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">4. Get a group of the participants in a quiet and controlled environment where they can concentrate on the reading. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">5. While testing the subjects one at a time, record how many times they make mistakes in the data table. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">6. Document the data.

<span style="color: #b600ff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Background Research
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Consensus among psychologists who study reading is that we don’t recognize words by their shapes, but by looking at the letters within a word in parallel.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Comes from a letter written in 1999 by Graham Rawlinson.“Clearly, the first and last letters are not the only thing you use when reading text,” said Rawlinson."Reminds me of my Ph.D. at Nottingham University, which showed that randomizing letters in the middle of words had little or no effect on the ability of skilled readers to understand the text."
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Most people think that we only use the first and last letters when reading a word, which is false.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">People don’t recognize words by their shapes. If they did, you wouldn’t be able to read a misspelled word, which has a different shape from its correct form.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When scrambled words are in things such as emails, they’re made easier to read. A popular email of scrambled letters started circling to most people’s inboxes in 2003. It claims there was a study done at Cambridge University that discovered that the brain can read scrambled words as long as the first and last letter stay the same because the brain doesn’t read each individual letter, but the word as a whole. The email is however, false. The words in it aren’t as jumbled as they could be, so it’s easier to read.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When looking at or reading something rays of light are reflected off our eyes.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> In each eye a lens focuses the rays so they meet the back of the eye and form an upside-down picture of what we’re looking at. This area’s called the retina. Retina cells send messages to the brain along the optic nerves.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The visual cortex receives the image and turns it right side up.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Messages are also sent to other parts of the brain- the hypothalamus, and mid-brain structures.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When reading, your eyes move constantly as they gather bits of information.

<span style="color: #b600ff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//References//
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Cambridge Word Scramble Study: It's Fake Already!." Science Avenger. N.p., 16 Dec. 2007. Web. 19 Jan. 2012. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Crowder, Courtney. "If You Can Raed Tihs, You Msut Be Raelly Smrat." FOX News. N.p., 31 Mar. 2009. Web. 18 Jan. 2012. <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,511177,00.html>. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">L., K.. "Mystery of Scrambled Words." Srcibd. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 19 Jan. 2012. <http://www.scribd.com/doc/7366101/Mystery-of-the-Scrambled-Words>. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Silverstein, Alvin, Silverstein Virginia, and Silverstein, Robert. The Nervous System. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century Books, 1994. Print.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-align: right;"> Sahni, Sun. "Jumbled Letters Still Readable." //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: times,helvetica; font-size: 16px;">Infolific //. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Jan. 2012. <http://infolific.com/fun/jumbled-letters-still-readable/>.

<span style="color: #00ff00; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Data Table//
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">media type="custom" key="12296116"

<span style="color: #b600ff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">//Conclusion//
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The original purpose of this experiment was to find how/if gender affects the ability to read jumbled words. I had a total of twenty people participate in my experiment-ten males and ten females. The results of the experiment were that gender doesn’t affect the ability to read jumbled words. Eight was the highest number of mistakes made by females and eighteen was the highest for males. However, the average between the two genders wasn’t as great. The median amount of mistakes females made was 6.4 and 8.8 for males, There isn’t a clear relationship between gender and someone’s ability to read jumbled words.

<span style="color: #b600ff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Discussion
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My hypothesis was that females would make fewer mistakes when reading jumbled words than males. My results do and do not support my hypothesis.I predicted that females wouldn’t make as many mistakes as males, which was correct. I also thought that there’d be a greater difference between the average for each gender, which was incorrect. There weren’t really any consistent patterns or trends throughout the data, but 25% of the people who participated in the experiment made eight mistakes. I think the test went smoothly. All twenty people were able to take part in it without any problems and I was able to gather the data I needed. If I could improve my experiment, I would have more people participate, so I could see what the results would be with a wider range of people. An interesting future study might involve people of different ages and seeing if that affects their ability to read jumbled words.