Vertical High Jump vs Calf Diameter

Biology 281 Lab Summary #1

Purpose: The purpose of this lab is to find out the relationship between the vertical high jump and calf diameter in males and females. In addition we wanted to look at the difference in reaction times in the left and right hand.

Hypothesis: I hypothesize that both female and male vertical high jumps measured in inches will be positively correlated to their calf size in inches. Also, I hypothesize that the reaction time will be faster, or smaller for the right hand on the majority of our sample.

Procedure: To measure the reaction time of our classmates, one partner held a meter stick-like apparatus and dropped it between the fingers of a second partner. The sooner the second partner reacted and closed their fingers, the smaller the reading would be on the measurement device indicating the mm/s that the person reacted in. The experiment was repeated five times on each hand of each student and averages were calculated.

The second part of the experiment required that each student stand against a tape measure taped to the wall with their arm extended out. Partners would take a reading of the highest point they could touch standing in inches and take a second measurement of the highest point their arm reached when jumping up vertically. After subtracting these two numbers, we got the vertical high jump, or VHJ number and repeated the experiment five times for each student and calculated the averages. Finally, calf measurements were taken in inches by wrapping a tape measure around each person’s dominant calf.

Conclusion: After plotting the data, and finding that there is a negative slope for the relationship between VHJ and calf size, my hypothesis was proven false. According to the data, VHJ decreased with increasing calf size for both males and females. The correlation was stronger in males as the slope was -0.92 compared to -0.18 for females. The hypothesis was formed on the theory that people with larger calves would be taller and...