The report is regarding the right hand and left hand dominance. It was only a short experiment/survey.
ABSTRACT: The dominance of left hand and right hand and if left handed people are more ambidextrous was investigated in this research. A survey was conducted and the results were then calculated. It was found that right handed people tended to use their right hand more than left handed people using their left hand thus supporting the hypothesis of left handed people being more ambidextrous. These finding show that left handed people are indeed more ambidextrous than right handed people.
The purpose of this research was to investigate whether or not people who are left handed are more ambidextrous (able to use both hands) than right handed people.
Previous research indicates that left handed people are less lateralized (one sided) than right handed people. In a left handed person’s brain there is a less distinct specialization between the two hemispheres of the brain. Even the actual size and shape of a left handed person’s cerebral hemisphere are more alike than that of a right handed person’s.
“People who write with their left hand will be more ambidextrous (able to use both hands) than people who write with their right hand.” The independent variable of this research is whether a person writes with their left hand or their right hand and the dependent variable is how ambidextrous (able to use both hands) a person is.
There was a total of fifty-eight participants. Fifty of the participants were right handed and eight were left handed. The participants were selected from a range of friends, family and classmates of the Year Eleven VCE students.
A Survey Sheet and a calculator
How the results were obtained was by asking friends, family and classmates the questions on the survey sheet. Then the total amount of participants and their answers were calculated and a percentage was found for each question. After a total percentage of the given tasks was calculated, the two different variables (right handed or left handed) was then compared.
Table.Summary of results
||Threading a needle
||Lighting a match
||Unscrewing a lid
||Throwing a ball
|Right handers who used right hand only
|Left handers who used their left hand only
The results in the table show that people who are right handed used their right hand more when completing or doing a task then the left handed people, excluding writing their name on a piece of paper. Eighty-eight percent of right handed people used their right hand when cutting paper and eighty-eight percent of left handed people used their left hand when they were cutting paper. Another result which can be obtained from the table is that seventy-eight percent of right handed people use their right hand to throw a ball whereas only thirty-eight percent of left handed people used their left hand. Also shown in the table is the sixty-six percent of right handed people shuffled cards only with their right hand and only fifty percent of left handed people used their left hand. In regards to all the other tasks, the right handed people were the most dominant.
The hypothesis was stated that left handed people were more ambidextrous than right handed people and this can be seen by the results in the survey. Right handed people used their right hand more and were therefore less ambidextrous than left handed people. The sample is not big enough to be generalized to the wider population and therefore can not be used. Previous research stated that left handed people are less lateralized (one sided) than right handed people. The results of the survey showed that left handed people are indeed less lateralized than right handed people.
Problems with the research.
- The sample was too small
- There should of been more survey questions
- The participants should of completed the tasks instead of just answering the questions on the survey.
- There was not an equal ratio of left handed to right handed people.