Linear Regression Analysis in a First Physics Lab

Abstract

Linear regression analysis (least squares) is used in the first physics lab in order to introduce students to computer-aided analysis and to teach data fitting techniques. Application is made to two experiments: Fletcher’s trolley and Hooke’s law. Least squares will extract information from raw data in a very precise way, and it opens the way for the study of more complicated phenomena than a first lab usually covers. Students who learn least squares in the first semester do much better in future labs, including nonphysics labs.