OCR AAQ in Applied Science: Handling scientific data

Course: OCR Level 3 Alternative Academic Qualification Cambridge Advanced Nationals in Applied Science.

Unit F181: Science in society
Topic Area 2: Handling scientific data

2.1 Types of scientific data
2.2 Collecting scientific data
2.3 Storage and presentation of scientific data
2.4 Interpreting data

• Qualitative and quantitative data
• Continuous and discrete data
• Data from observations and
• measurements
• Primary and secondary data
• Observation and measurement
• from experiments
• Surveys
• Sampling
• Random
• Systematic
• Estimation
• Cohort studies
• Meta-studies
• Computer modelling
• Personal database
• National database
• International database
• Scatter and line graph
• Bar chart
• Histogram
• Pie chart
• Kite diagram
• Cumulative graph
• Box and whisker plots
• Draw conclusions
• Accept or reject a hypothesis
• Inform further scientific
• investigation

Mathematical skills include:

• Calculate the mean, median, mode, range (e.g. height of group of organisms, number of stomata in a plant).
• Determining the intercept and/or gradient using y = mx + c.
• Calculating the rate of change from a graph with a linear relationship (e.g. rate of transpiration).
• Drawing a tangent to a curve on a graph to calculate the rate of change (e.g. amount of product produced against time, at a fixed concentration of enzyme).
• Calculate the standard deviation of a set of data.