Reflection

I am successfully complete the maze experiment. I can put hamsters in

the maze and it can complete the maze at least one time. I also find useful
information about the experiment that usually done in the university about
the maze. I did the experiment about the ability of female and male hamster
to run the maze. I choose Roborovski hamster to be the runner because it
can run fast. My female hamster named Hamham and a male hamster
named Taro. Both hamster are 2 months old. I also think that I successfully
know how to take care of hamster. My purpose from doing this project is to
learn about learning behavior of hamster. The result from this experiment is
not follows our hypothesis. My hypothesis stated that male hamster will learn
better than female hamster but the result came out that female hamster can
complete the maze more trials than male hamster. The result revealed that
female hamster can remember and learn faster than male hamster. This
project helps me to understand more about animal behavior subject. I learn
about learning behavior and classical conditioning of hamster. I try to use
classical conditioning to train hamster to get familiar with human. I use food
as an unconditioned stimuli and hamster coming out of the house as
unconditioned response. I use my voice as conditioned stimulus. I hope that
every time I called it, it will come out of the house and come to eat food from
my hand. The result from the experiment did not follow the literature review
that we found. In the literature, it said that hamster will learn to complete
the maze faster if there is the food at the end of the maze. But my hamster
did not eat the food at the end of the maze and try to get back into the maze
after seeing the finish line. My result did not follow other experiments result
because hamster is scared of people so it does not want to come out of the
maze.

My failure in this project is I cannot train the hamster for complete the
maze and also cannot make the hamster familiar to people. My female
hamster can complete the maze 3 times out of 5 times and my male hamster
can only complete maze one time out of five times. Both hamsters can
complete the maze in the first time but after that, it cannot or take a longer
time to complete the maze. This result really confuses me and makes the
conclusion of the result very peculiar. I think that one reason hamster cannot
run as effective as possible because it has fear of human. I think that I should
play with it more so it gets familiar with human and when we pick it up for
running the maze, it will be able to complete the maze. My male hamster
tries to escape from the cage every time it has a chance. When I put my
hand inside the cage to fill up the food dish, it will run around the cage and
finally get to hide inside its house. One time, I want to pick it up and play
with it, I chased it and it gets really scared. It tries to get out of the cage
through the gap between the wires. Unfortunately, the gap between wires of
the cage is big enough for it to get through. It can come out of the cage. My
friends and I spend a long time to bring it back in the cage. One of my
friends gets bite by the hamster. I think it bites because my friend holds him
too tight and hurt him. After that, he looks angry all the time. He did not get
used to my voice. I try to feed him from my hand by calling his name. He will
come out at the door of its house but never come to eat from my hand,
unlike female hamster. When I called female hamster using the word ma
which means come in Thai, she will come out of the house and eat food from
my hand. Male hamster can escape from his cage again after we put him in
the first trial of the maze. I think he did this because he feels uncomfortable
and feels scared. Scare can turn to be aggressive if the fear is too much to
handle. My failure is when I am not taking care of both hamsters as much as
possible and not have planned for an unexpected situation such as hamster
can escape from the cage.

I have learned from my mistake that if I have consciousness, I will be

able to solve any problem that I met. If I was not panic about the hamster
getting out of the cage, I will be able to catch it faster than this and nobody
will get injury. From doing this project, I think that I should plan things before
start doing it and also think about mistake that may happen. If I plan to
check the cage before using it, there would not be any accident like this
happen. I learned that anything can happen in my life so I need to prepare
for the worst situation that I can imagine of so I am ready for anything that
will come. I should know how to solve any possible problem that will occur
during the project or at least thinking about the problem that may occur. I
learned that I should stay calm and not get panic because if I get panic, I will
not be able to solve any problems. I should always plan everything before
start to do it.

My strength as a learner is I try to find as much as possible information

about a hamster that will be useful for the experiment. I do a lot of research
about how to raise hamster. I read a lot of information from the internet. If I
want to know something, I will spend long time to search and read about
that. But if I dont want to know or it is not interesting, I will do a little
research on that topic.
 My weakness as a learner is I did not like to record what I have learn in
learning record form. I think that it is boring when I need to take note about
information I learn. But now, I know that recording what I learn is important
because I always forgetting information all the times. Another weakness as a
learner is I cannot decide whether the information I got is accurate or not. I
try to find reliable source but the information I found is from website about
hamster which I think it is reliable. I think I should practice more on finding
and identify accurate information.

If I have a chance of doing this experiment again, I will start the

experiment sooner so I get enough time to make hamsters get familiar with
me. I will train the hamster using classical conditioning. I think that if
hamster gets familiar with me, the result of the experiment will change.
Motivation of hamster to run will be food not just running because it fears. I
will also make the maze easier. At first I think that I will use guinea pig in this
experiment but it is too expensive so I change from guinea pig to hamster. I
already reduce the size of the maze but it still too big for hamster. I will
reduce the size and design the maze to be less complicate than this one so it
will have higher chance to complete the maze. I will use another species of
hamster because other groups hamster can get familiar with human easier
than my hamster. I will control more variable. My independent variable is sex
of hamster. In this experiment, I use different design of the cage. One of the
cage have running wheel but another one doesnt have while one cage have
tube but another cage doesnt. I use this cage because one of member in the
group already have hamster cage at home. We still provide the same type of
food, same type of bedding, same age and same species of hamster. Next
time, I may be change the independent variable to be the size of the cage
because I think that different environment also cause different behavior.

I learn that to be a learner is very hard. It is different from when we just

listening and taking note from teacher in the classroom. To be learner, I need
to be more active and have more responsibility to do research. No one can
control and tell me what to do and when so I need to be more self-conduct
learner. I think that I still not good at self-conductor techniques because I can
go out of point easily when I doing research. I cannot concentrate on one
topic for a long time unless it is all most reach the due date. I should not
listen to music during working because it make my work goes slower. I
cannot work in loud place because the noise interrupts my thinking process. I
should improve on controlling myself to concentrate at work more than what
I am now.
 I learn that I can work with animal. I feel more comfortable with animal
than some people. I can be patient with animal and can wait for it to get
familiar with me. I can wait until it ready for me to touch. I order lot of people
to do work and I think it is a bad thing I do to my friend. I need to change this
and try to avoid ordering. I should suggest them to do something not order
them. I will try my best to learn how to work with other people and ask for
help from them not force them to do what I want. This project really helps me
to practice working with other and learn to accept other people opinion that
is different from mine. During this project, there are lot of time when we have
different opinion within the group, I try to listen to other idea and combine
both idea together so no one get upset. I also learn how to ask for what I
want. I should have more control on my behavior because this is how human
differ from animal.

In this project, I accomplished MUIDS ESLO number 4 which is morally

intelligent person. I need to take care of hamster as good as I can. I need to
do everything base of the idea that hamsters are also living thing. I need to
provide food and water for them every day so they can survive. I need to
consider their feeling as I did this experiment. I need to let them rest for a bit
between each trial. Another ESLO that I accomplished is number 5a which is
be responsible citizens. This project trains me to become more responsible
person. Every day in the morning, I have to come to school early and fill food
and water for hamster. If I did not have responsibility, hamster will get
starving and get sick. No matter how busy I am, I still need to change the
bedding material for hamster because hamster should not live in dirty
environment. I become more responsible person from doing this project.