Introduction to sports and exercise.

Order Description

Part 2

Interpreting data and the scientific method (500 words/24 marks)

Below, a fictitious scenario is described in which a student researcher has gained the consent of Venus and her mother to take part in an investigation. The researcher is hoping that heart rate will be a useful marker of Venus’s levels of arousal and anxiety. In this hypothetical situation, Venus’s heart rate is monitored during two competitions under three conditions (resting, pre-beam and pre-bars) to see how it responds.

The researcher is interested in how Venus’s heart rate responds to different levels of competition and therefore decides to monitor her heart rate during a low-level competition (e.g. a club competition) and during a high-level competition (e.g. national championships).

Venus’s resting heart rate is measured with a heart rate monitor on the morning of each competition, before she gets out of bed. Her heart rate is also recorded using a heart rate monitor immediately before her performance on the beam (pre-beam) and immediately before her performance on the asymmetrical bars (pre-bars). Her warm-ups for both competitions and both events are similar.

The researcher wants to compare Venus’s heart rates on the beam and on the bars, as in the DVD clip she experiences more difficulties performing on the beam than she does on the bars.

The results gathered by the researcher are presented below.

Table 1: Venus’s heart rate (beats per minute, bpm)
Resting heart rate Pre-beam heart rate Pre-bars heart rate
Low-level competition 60 115 80
High-level competition 70 133 98
Questions

a. Interpret Venus’s heart rate data based on your knowledge of arousal and anxiety from Study Topic 2. For this part of the question, you need not take into account any concerns over the validity of the data. (250 words/12 marks)
b.Using your knowledge of the scientific method discussed in Study Topic 1, and your knowledge of anxiety and arousal gained from Study Topic 2, identify two limitations of this heart rate research and make recommendations for how each of these limitations could be addressed in order to improve the research. (250 words/12 marks)
Part 3

Analysis of your own experience