By: Sydney B.
Year: 2020
School: Portola High School, 9th grade
Division: Senior
Advisor: Erin Arredondo
In my science fair project, I tested if people improved in time as they repeated the samet ask each day. This is known as an improvement or learning curve. I also wanted to see if there was a difference due to age as well as if there were any learning setbacks after a break from practice.
I used inductive reasoning to conclude that the approximate learning curve for all people is 76%, age does not have an impact on a person’s rate of learning, and it takes much longer than one week for subjects to show lost learning.
This experiment is important because it aims to discover the learning curve at which human subjects absorb information about assembly. It can lead to further discoveries about how long it takes to forget information as well as the methods that the human mind uses to store tha tinformation.
The experiment also wishes to answer questions about if age plays a significant role in a person’s rate of learning. It can affect society by disproving some myths about learning and show to others what the best method of learning may be. It may be natural to think that repetition of an action can lead to improvement in efficiency and skill, but my experiment aims to answer the rate at which the improvement is made. Additionally, I want to know if a long period of time in between practice of the skill can cause a person’s memory to lose sight of that skill or if our brains can store that information in our long-term memory and return to where it left off.
I hypothesize that human subjects would improve at an exponential rate, return to 50%improvement after the break, and continue to learn the task at an even faster rate when practice resumes. I think that different people will learn at different rates, the adults having smaller improvement curves than the teenagers.