OUR INTENTIONS

What is your chosen infographic topic and why is this a topic you wish to research?

Our chosen infographic topic is caffeine consumption at John Monash Science School. We wish to research this topic as, throughout our time at the school, we have repeatedly noticed the seemingly abnormal amount of caffeine consumed by students and teachers, and would like to collate and formalise the data surrounding this.

Purpose of the infographic website – Persuade, Inform or Entertain? What does it aim to achieve?

The purpose of our infographic website is to inform JMSS students and teachers about the level of caffeine consumption at the school, and provide information about the effects that excessive caffeine consumption can have on health and cognitive function. This is not intended to persuade, rather to provide all information available, along with our primary statistics, to help visitors to the website form their own opinions surrounding caffeine.

Intended audience – Describe the type of students this infographic is targeted towards and why, eg age group, ethnicity, gender, interests, etc

The intended audience is primarily students and teachers that attend John Monash Science School, as these students’ and teachers’ caffeine habits will be the data reflected in the infographic. This can further inform them of how all members of the John Monash Science School community generally interact with caffeinated drinks.

What information based on primary data are you aiming to collect and present on your infographic?

We will ask students and teachers about their caffeine habits, including how many caffeinated drinks they consume a day, when they mostly drink caffeine (morning, afternoon, or evening), whether they believe it has impacted their sleep, and whether they believe it is impacting their cognitive function, where a caffeinated drink is anything that is commonly known to have caffeine or contains it in an ingredient list.

What information based on secondary data are you aiming to research and present on your website?

We intend to include previously collated data regarding caffeine consumption in those between the ages 15 and 19, to create comparisons of our data against the national average data. Information will also be gathered surrounding caffeine intake in adults so that data collected from teachers can also be placed in a wider context. We also plan to collect information regarding the effects of caffeine on health and cognitive function.

What will you do to ensure the integrity of your primary and secondary data (i.e reliable and free from bias)?

To ensure the integrity of our primary data, we will restrict respondents to our survey to students and teachers using an email address associated with John Monash Science School (@jmss.vic.edu.au), and prevent anyone from responding multiple times. Additionally, all questions will be multiple choice to prevent people from putting jokes in, or otherwise attempt to mess with the survey in some way. To ensure the integrity of our secondary data, we will ensure that data sourced is from peer-reviewed studies, or from sources that are not-for-profit and dedicated to data collection, particularly those regarding caffeine consumption in older adolescents and adults.

What will you do to ensure the ethical collection, storage and use of collected data?

We will include a consent form explaining the type of data that we will be collecting and about how the data will be utilised on our website. No data will be collected beyond what is necessary for our study. The four members of this group will be the only students with access to the obtained data. We will also anonymise data by using pseudonyms or ID numbers to protect the privacy of those surveyed.