Welcome to my delightful online presentation of my science fair project! To put it in a nutshell, It was a study of birth order and whether the order one was born in in comparison to their siblings, has any affect on the development of their personalities or ablities. So, at any rate, the project does pertain to the every day life of just about everyone and anyone!
All that I used to complete this project were:
-Surveys (wirtten by myself)
-And a few supplies used to conduct a quick test (which I also invented)
So, I was a fairly simple experiment to conduct and draw results from.
I used over thirty individual subjects, most with siblings that I had access to as well. All of my subjects ranged form age 10 to 18. I gave these subject surveys that I had made for two categories. One survey was made for children with siblings, and one was made for children without siblings, or with siblings more that four years of an age gap between them. These surveys were written to try and determine someones personality and habits, in order to compare the results and try to get some consistant answers. The subjects also had one test that was performed on them to try to test their perfectionism. They were given a piece of paper and asked to draw an octagon with a star in it, five parralell lines, and three circles inside each other. They were given a model to copy if needed They were given thirty seconds to finish. Their level of perfectionism was based on the time it took them, their habits while drawing (such as repeated erasing), and the quality of the drawing.
The "only children" (children without siblings were my control group, because they were not exposed to to the variables that the siblings of my other subjects provided. Thus, the "only children" were the basis for camparison with the other expeimental variable groups.
It was hypothesized that birth order was indeed a factor in the development of development of a subjects personality, traits, and habits. The results drawn from the surveys and the experiment seemed to support the hypothesis. Based on the surveys and tests, it seemed that birth order was indeed a factor in determining a persons personality in areas such as perfectionism, effort, habits, and opinions. These results were merely based on consistencies found in the survey and tests, and are by no means considered fact, because there are so many variables in experimentation with humans. Perhaps that was the most difficult thing to deal with during this experiment, for there will always be exception in human experimentation, and no one result can be considered absolutely true.
In reflecting back on the long hours spent on this project, I would suggest that anyone who attempted to repeat the experement should provide appropriate time needed to finish the project. Also, I learned that you can not depend on people. I think if I were to do this again I would get a few more variables and use as many as possible, for many of msubjects were irresponsible, and thus I was not able to use them.
All in all, I learned alot from this project, and actually had fun with my experimentation. I got to know other people and myself better as a result of the project. and I have come to realize and better understand the reasons behind some peoples behavior.
If you have any questions or comments, you can E-mail me at BAUB1024@aol.com
Thank you!