We are a group consisting of 6 nursing students. We started our journey to the path of Nursing on the Year 2009. Through the learning journey, we have learned that being a nurse is not about being just a nurse, it is also an all-round excellence profession - being able to adapt, always curious and looking at things in many possible aspects.
As nursing students, what we learn most is humans, human bodies, and more humans. That lead us on to pick up on our interest about human body proportions. While discussing and researching, we came across with the Golden ratio of body proportions; Leonardo DaVinci's Vitruvian Man.
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| The Vitruvian Man |
That was when we got our idea from, which is, whether is the
length of upper arm equivalent to the length of forearm, or not?
So you may ask, why did we choose this topic to be our study and what is the importance of it? The reason is that firstly, we think that it is interesting to know more about our own bodies and we want to share the interest with people around the world and also to prove whether is it true that our upper arm and our forearm has a relationship with the skill we learn from Statistics. Secondly, we find that this study might become a future reference in terms of Statistics or Research and might be able to help others by giving them a bit of an idea just like what Leonardo DaVinci gave us. Though this study is not directly related to nursing practice that we have currently experienced during attachments, we think that we can use this study and our results to amaze our future clients to build closer and stronger rapports with them. In short, this study can help us learn and apply in many ways in the future.
After discussing, we derived that our 2 variables are ...
Dependent variable: Length of forearm. (Scale/Interval data)
Independent variable: Length of upper arm. (Scale/Interval data)
Conceptualization
So, what do we mean by the length of upper arm and length of the fore arm? For the length of upper arm, we will be measuring from the Acromion process to the Coronoid process. As for the length of the forearm, we will measure from the Coronoid process to the Styloid process. The length of both upper arm and forearm is measured in centimeters.
Acromion process defined as a natural prolongation or projection from a part of an organism either animal or plant; "a bony process".
Coronoid process defined as a term given to two different structures found within the human body. One is located on jawbone. However, for our research topic, it is located at the ulna, a long bone found in the forearm.
The coronoid process of the ulna projects from the front part of the ulna, one of the major bones in the arm. The sharp, curved apex, or highest point of the structure, attaches to the coronoid fossa of the humerus. This attachment occurs when the forearm is in a flexed position.
Styloid process in ulna defined as it projects from the medial and back part of the bone; it descends a little lower than the head, and its rounded end affords attachment to the ulnar collateral ligament of the wrist-joint.
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| Acromion process. |
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| The location of the Coronoid and Styloid process. |
Operationalization
The length of upper arm will be measured using a measuring tape. The length of the forearm will be measured using the same measuring tape so as to ensure validity and reliability. The lengths will all be measured in centimeters (cm).
2 Testable Hypothesis
- Null Hypothesis: There is no relationship between the length of upper arm and the length of fore arm.
- Research Hypothesis: There is a relationship between the length of upper arm and the length of fore arm.
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Collection of data
Venue: NYP campus; Library and Block H Level 6.
Date: 7th January 2011, Friday.
With the help of our group members who went for English lessons before they entered Nanyang Polytechnic, we got hold of a class of students who go for English classes. And, we managed to get our expected number of sampling which is the total number of 30 respondents - 15 male and 15 female. Informed consent was given to each and every one and we were all ready to start collecting the data! Everybody has their important role during the collection of data.
Group member 1 was in charge of giving and getting informed consent from respondents.
Group member 2 was in charge on taking photos when measuring.
Group member 3 was in charge in recording down the data and making sure it was all kept confidential.
Group member 4 was in charge of measuring the variables from the respondents.
Group member 5 and 6 were there to ensure validity and accuracy during the whole procedure.
Before we start measuring, we will check that
- Respondents have really given informed consent.
- Respondents are not recently injured or not able to stretch out the arms.
- Respondents did not have any fractures, or any related incidents that could cause the change of bone structure or arm.
This slip of short questions was given to each of them to fill in before we started measuring.
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| One of the respondents answering our questionnaire. |
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| This was how we measured the upper arm. |
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| And the forearm. |
So, we measured both left and right arms of each respondents to ensure validity. During collecting data, the respondents were all able to stretch their arms straight out, letting us to measure accurately without bending the measuring tape. In addition, we thought people would avoid taking part in our study. But all of the respondents were all happy to help and were interested to know the answer and most importantly, none of them rejected participation. Therefore, the collecting of data was a success! :D
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Statistical analysis
After we had collected our data, we key in the data into SPSS. The picture below shows our raw data - The data view and variable view. Click on the pictures for a bigger view.
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Data view
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Variable view
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As our both variables are scale data, we will be using Pearson's R.
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| Pearson R result for Left arm and forearm |
As the results shows from the above table, p < 0.05; (p = 0.000) Therefore, we are rejecting the null hypothesis which is, there is no relationship between the two variables for the LEFT arm.
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Pearson's R result for right upper arm and forearm
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The table shown above shows the result of Pearson's R for RIGHT arm. It has the same result - reject the null hypothesis as p < 0.05; (p = 0.000).
Therefore, for both left and right arms, we reject the null hypothesis and accept the research hypothesis.
Final results:
There is a relationship between the length of upper arm and length of forearm!
Left upper arm and forearm:
As (r = 0.602, p < 0.05, n = 30), there is a
positive, strong relationship between the length of upper arm and length of forearm.
Right upper arm and forearm:
As (r = 0.775, p < 0.05, n = 30), there is a
positive, strong relationship between the length of upper arm and length of forearm.
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Conclusion
Implication findings
We concluded that there is a positive and strong relationship between the length of upper arm and length of forearm for both left and right arms.
Influence of findings
- The insufficient size of samples (Therefore, our study cannot represent the target population)
- The position of the respondents
- The medical history of respondent (due to arm injury or etc)
- The gender of the respondents
- The body structure and genetics considerations
We are from Group 1, Class 2009; Sub-group THREE! Our group consists of 6 members; Waiwai, Nabilah, Lin Aung, Juvena, Jiang juan and Eileen. We are like Winnie the Pooh and friends - have our own unique characters. This is our Statistics project.
Enjoy browsing and analyzing! :) 
Wai wai said, "Hello, I'm Wai Wai Hnin and I’m a leader of this subgroup. We took this particular module called Statistics as part academic curriculum. By doing this, we have understood about how we can apply in our professional. It introduces us to the basic concepts and principle related with statistical analysis. We have gained knowledge about skills to analyze and interpret findings. Our lecturer, Ms Chia had covered on classifying variables by using level of measurement, SPSS for windows, Analyzing frequency Distributions, Descriptive statistics, Normal curve and probability, Hypothesis testing, Choosing a statistical test, Measure of association and comparing Mean. I hope that I can apply it and it will help me if I go to further study. Finally, I would like to thank to Ms Chia and I really appreciate her knowledge on statistic. Thanks."
