Evaluation Tips

Purpose
The purpose of the
evaluation is to assess
the quality of the
investigation and
discuss next steps.
There is where you can
explain what may
have gone wrong and
how your investigation
could be improved.

Sources of Error
You must discuss three or more possible
sources of error AND describe how the
errors impacted your
experiment/results.
Errors could include:
o
o
o
o
o

Human error
Variables that were not kept constant
Environmental factors that could not be controlled
Inaccurate measurement device
Bias (observer expects a certain result)

Do differently next time?

Provide a
reasonable,
relevant
suggestion that
could significantly
improve the
investigation.

Confidence
Tell how confident you
are in your results.
Would you expect to
repeat your findings if
you did the
investigation again?
Must refer to
confidence chart.

Alternative Explanations
What other reasoning could you give to explain
your results?
Might your results be due to something else
(some other factor)?
Were your possible errors significant enough that
if they were corrected they would change your
conclusion?

Surprises
Explain something in
this investigation that
surprised you.
Tell WHY you were
surprised. How was
what happened
different from what
you expected?

New Prediction
Tell what your
prediction would be if
you were to do this
investigation again
and explain WHY.
Must include
reasoning.

Next Question
Write a related question that would be interesting
to investigate.
Your next question should be an extension of the
original question. Take what you learned and
think of something that would be interesting to
investigate next. Next question must be closely
related to original question.