IA Data Collection Methods and Processes

[MainRostand]

Hello everyone!

I am working on my IA for Math Studies. I get how everything needs to be presented on paper and the details I have to include, but I'm having trouble deciding a method for collecting the data and which advanced mathematical process I will conduct related to this.

My topic is the following:

How does the tempo of a song affect the human heart rate?

So, at first sight it seemed like something pretty simple... But then I started to think about the topic more and more and now I'm stuck with the aforementioned problem. Since the normal number of heart beats of a person at rest and the way it will react to the tempo are different, I will need to study the change in heart rate. There are various ways in which I could measure the data:

• Using a traditional method with the inflatable band with an stethoscope inside to basically just count the beats in a one minute period.
• Using an electronic device that measures the beats per minute. (Although I believe this uses predictions by extrapolation of the intervals between a beat and the next one)

But then, if I just measure it at the start and the end... I think it could give me incomplete data! This is why I have been considering:

• For each of the different tempo's of a song, measure the heart rate with an electronic device at fixed intervals to obtain a complete view of the rate at which the heart beats change. (This would require a graph of heart rate vs time)

I am very confused, because if I do this, I wouldnt know how to put the data into a scatter plot to draw correlation coefficients (because I am trying to investigate if there is any correlation between changes the tempo of music and the heart rate of a person). What do you think about my problem? Should I maybe just do the final heart rate for a fixed tempo and get the correlation coefficient and take advantage of the incomplete data to go into the required second mathematical process?

Any suggestions? Should I consider using t-test for this project?

Edited April 6, 2014 by MainRostand

[Furichi Abe]

First of all, I'm sorry but, your topic is really complicated. In my opinion, since I'm a happy-go-lucky type of person, I'll just stick into one of the methods of measuring the heartbeat. Then in your actual IA, include that as your limitation. I don't really know how to do the whole IA thing with correlation because I did Independent Sample T-test and I got a 5 in my IA. I just wish you good luck and may your IA be easier for you. Although, I'm wondering why you're just starting with it , you could have started sooner. If you ever think about doing a T-test, you could google "independent sample t test or 2 sample t-test powerpoint" and click the very first link, that helped me to do my T-tests.

Best of luck to you!