User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
Since originally making my hypothesis and making my data collections, I have decided to revise my sampling method slightly: Since I am measuring fallen leaves, there is no way to guarantee the leaves beneath a given tree were grown on that particular plant. Giving more observation to the distribution of leaves on the ground, I shouldn’t be able to make the claim of tree origin with any confidence, so I am going to instead group sampled leaves to a “habitat area.” The aggregation of the data means that I would not be able to look for associations in the data between leaf length and individual tree. However, the integrity of the data is preserved for the purpose of comparing variance within and between and groups (ANOVA), except that there is an increased risk of a Type II error. (Which is better than a Type I error, in my opinion).
I have thus sampled trees within each of two different habitat areas (one near the construction site and roadway; the other farther away) on three separate occasions. In total, 80 leaf length samples were taken from each habitat area over the data collection period.
