User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
For the small assignment on tables and graphs, I made a table comparing the gravimetric soil water content of sites with and without cedar trees. To do this, I used basic statistical analysis, including the minimum and maximum value, mean, median, and standard deviation.
I would have liked to put this data in a graph, as I think that would have displayed the data better. However, upon a preliminary search of how to do logistic regression graphs, I quickly realized that this was far out of my current level of comprehension. This produced the difficulty of having to put everything that would be represented in this type of graph in a table. I don’t think I fully achieved this, as I ended up leaving out all the separate data that I collected to keep the table simple and easy to read. I am currently brainstorming other methods that will fully represent the data for my final.
The outcome was what I expected, although not to the same magnitude. The mean for the results from sites with cedar trees was 52% compared to 41% for sites without cedar trees. I was expecting the soil to be more moist in the sites with cedar trees by about 20% as opposed to 11%. Foolishly forgetting that I live on the “Wet Coast”, I was also expecting both values to be lower overall.
It was interesting that the data from the sites with cedar trees had a fairly higher standard deviation than the ones without cedar trees. This may mean that other factors are affecting the soil moisture on sites with cedar than that aren’t affecting the sites without cedar trees. These other factors could be further explored in the future by doing a study focused on sites with cedar trees.
Sounds like you put a lot of thought into displaying your data and agreed, logistic regression is a tough one!