Test protocol

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An experimental protocol describes the performance of a scientific experiment and documents observations and any results.

Areas of application

Test protocols are necessary in research in order to enable possible verification by other researchers (required reproducibility of the results, see experiment ). As an exercise, they are made as part of the natural science education, for example in the subjects of physics , chemistry , biology , pharmacy and medicine .

Documentation by means of a test protocol is used in industry to prove that a product meets the legal requirements. This is done within the framework of quality assurance and - if necessary - approval .

construction

  1. Topic / questions
  2. Conjecture ( hypothesis )
  3. used material
  4. Experimental setup and implementation
  5. Observation (possibly measured values)
  6. Evaluation (including interpretation, explanation or interpretation, possibly including error analysis )

Topic / question

Experiments usually have a central topic or a key question. This is indicated first. The question should be formulated in such a way that it can also be answered by a suitable experiment. If the question is too open, it becomes more difficult to answer.

Conjecture (hypothesis)

In many cases one has a guess as to how the experiment will go before performing. This assumption should be formulated here. Several guesses can also be collected.

used material

The general materials and chemicals that were required during the trial / experiment should be listed here.

Experimental setup and implementation

A detailed drawing of the experimental setup should be made and the equipment and parts of the equipment used should be named. Photos of the experiment can also be used for documentation.

In order for experiments to be copied and checked by others, exact logging of the execution of the experiment is required. This includes the exact listing of the starting substances or starting conditions, the exact quantity of the substances used and the temperature and pressure information. The procedure description must give precise information on how the experiment was made.

At this point it should be noted that you really only explain what you are doing.

observation

All observations such as color changes, changes in consistency, evaporation, precipitation of substances etc. must be recorded. If it is a quantitative test, measurements must be recorded precisely.

evaluation

After the test has been carried out, the results obtained are evaluated (possibly with an error calculation ). The procedure depends very much on the type of experiment. It is not always possible to explain the observations. In this case it should be discussed which further attempts should be made to explain it. In any case, the question and the hypothesis must be addressed.

Web links