Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
than right-handed. Does the dominant hand differ in any way (other
than the obvious ease of manipulation) from the nondominant hand?
One can imagine many different measurements that could be made to
address these questions. One could measure for each hand the distance
around the hand (as if measuring to determine glove size) or hand
strength or hand span (the distance from the tip of the thumb to the tip
of the little finger). A data set given below allows us to explore
some of these questions.
MEASUREMENT OF HAND SPAN—PILOT STUDY
Population
Fifteen female college students in a class at Sweet Briar College.
Materials
A meter stick.
Procedure
1. To obtain the hand span, students were directed to open each hand
as widely as possible.
2. Students placed the tip of the thumb on the zero mark of the meter
stick and then measured to the tip of the little finger.
3. The measurement (in cm) was recorded on the data sheet.
4. Steps 1 through 3 were repeated for the other hand.
5. The dominant hand was indicated by checking the appropriate box
on the data sheet.
Data
The data are recorded in the file handspan.xls, available from
http://www.
biomath.sbc.edu/data.html. The first sheet contains the data as collected;
the second sheet has the left and right hand measurements in adjacent
columns; and the third sheet has the nondominant and dominant hand
measurements in adjacent columns.
Formulate one or more hypotheses regarding handedness and hand
span, and use the data from the pilot study and the appropriate
statistical techniques to corroborate or reject these hypotheses. Present
