Weeks 5 & 6
So I find myself a week behind in writing again. Oh well. Not a lot new had been happening so I’ll combine the last couple weeks into a single post. It’s hard to believe we only have 2 weeks left!
Hierarchy data collection continues. It is probably my favorite part of the apprenticeship, as we get to spend a fair amount of time around the chimps. Since everyone still has not passed their reliability, we have had to up our number of weekly observations to at least 10 per person. I have been scheduling many of my observation shifts in a row in the mornings, so I get to spend and hour or so watching them and their behaviors. I also got to do 2 hour observations in the night cage area at dinner. Lots of interactions make it hard to record everything, but it is interesting to watch.
We have a whopping 27 participants for our art study, less than half of what we were hoping for with only one week left of data collection. I assume we will run the data with the number we have anyway, though I’m not sure if we have enough data to reach statistical significance (maybe though, since I had less data for my thesis and it was borderline). From the preliminary totals, it looks like there are some trends towards grouping certain drawings together, a good sign that it wasn’t a total waste.
Only 2 Weeks left!