Theory Testing

Theory Testing

The theory that was being tested was the Diet Coke and Mentos Geyser. My children wanted to try and see if we could make the Diet Coke shoot out of the top of the bottle like the videos that they had watched on Youtube.com. How the experiment works is you open a package of Mentos and drop the entire package in the Diet Coke as fast as possible. The faster the Mentos drops, the more forceful the Diet Coke Geyser will shoot.

What should happen is the combination of carbon dioxide in the sealed Diet Coke and the little dimples found on Mentos candy pieces should cause the Diet Coke to come flying out from the opening of the bottle. We decided to test the theory outside and see what different variables could be used and what would be successful.

We chose to make the carbonated drinks the variables. So other carbonated drinks that were tested included Orange soda, Dr. Pepper, and Mtn. Dew. All of the different variables used, worked but the one that worked the best was the Diet Coke. The reason that the Diet Coke is the most successful is due to its other ingredients.

The informal research method that was used was archival research. The reason this method was similar to the research methods that are used by psychologist, would be because no new data was collected by my children or me when the original theory was being tested. However, experimental manipulation was used to test the theory with other carbonated drinks.

The experiment was successful with and without the variables being manipulated. If given the opportunity to perform this experiment over, it is doubtful that I would change anything. The theory was conformed and then retested using variables. Again, the theory ended up being conformed when the variables came in to