Booth Id:
BEHA003I
Category:
Biomedical and Health Sciences
Year:
2015
Finalist Names:
Wells, Sarena
Abstract:
The focus of this experiment was to study frustration and how it affected dispositional learning for 80 middle/high school students. Each student was given a questionnaire form and their heart rate taken before and after the experiment. The students were also filmed for later observation. Students were asked to put paper clips a homemade electromagnetic board as many times as possible in one minute. Communication changed each time: first test -no communication, second test –one-sided communication, and third time-open communication. Behind my board were switches that de-magnetized some nails, making the paperclips unable to stick and thus causing frustration.
The data collected supported my hypothesis: heart rate, frustration marks and overall frustration amount decreased when there was open/positive communication. In my questionnaire I discovered that 59% of my subjects felt that school was the number one cause of frustration. Frustration marks (the number of times facial/body expressions observed from videos) were tallied from each test. On average, there was a 19% decrease in frustration marks from test #1 to test #3. I also found that students were more frustrated and had the highest average heart rate (76.36bpm) during the second test, when there was one-sided communication.
This experiment is significant because it can help educators and parents learn to communicate better with students. Better communication will help the school environment be less frustrating, which in turn will lead to happier students, higher scores, and a positive environment for learning.