Standard Procedure

A 'standard procedure' describes exactly how to carry out an experiment or procedure. A 'standard procedure' also ensures that everyone who carries out a particular experiment does it in exactly the same way and collects the results in the same way. For these reasons, standard procedures are very important in the scientific workplace. Examples include procedures for carrying out measurements, preparing and purifying a compound, or monitoring a change. Standard procedures may be agreed within a company, or nationally, or internationally.

When following a standard procedure:

1. read the procedure and check to see if there is anything you do not understand
2. carry out a health and safety check of your working area
3. carry out a risk assessment for the activity that you are undertaking
4. set out your work area appropriately and collect together the equipment and materials you need.
5. follow the instructions one step at a time
6. select instruments that give the appropriate precision and use them to make accurate observations or measurements
7. identify possible sources of error and repeat observations and measurements, when necessary, to improve reliability.

A 'standard procedure' often tells you how to obtain and record observations and measurements and what to do with them. However, you should know some basic methods for recording and presenting data and for carrying out calculations. You should use ICT, where appropriate, in this work. It is also important that you think about the results you obtain and are able to interpret them. You will need to be able to:

1. present data in tables, bar charts, histograms, pictograms, pie charts, graphs and other visual images, as appropriate
2. carry out simple numerical calculations
3. analyse and interpret your results
4. evaluate your investigation and suggest improvements.

For each of the coursework pieces you will be given a standard procedure, and you will be marked on how much help you need to follow it.