Profile thesis

Hi everyone :wave: I'm in my final year of "high school" (we don't have the same system as you do though) and I have to do an essay (we call it profile thesis, not sure you actually use that word) about whatever I want, as long as it has something to do with one or more of my subjects.

I choose to do it about animal behaviour/learning in particular/learning and rabbits. I already started an experiment (with clickertraining) and done a lot of research about ways of learning.

My main question was "Can you teach a rabbit something" or "How can you teach a rabbit something" (wasn't sure yet, first one is a "yes" or "no" question, but the second one you're assuming you can teach a rabbit something and we're not supposed to assume anything either..) and the first subquestions would be "which ways of learning are there" but then I got stuck, I can't think of any other subquestions.. but I should have at least three to five..

Maybe I should envolve some other animals into the whole project? Or does anyone have any ideas?

I agree, good animals to compare them too is pigs and dogs and they also both are good learners. I think if you're basing it on rabbits and other animals, you need to include other animals, don't forget to include all different aspects of learning and teaching, does it depend on the animal, do you have to change the way you teach certain animals, is bribary the answer? (spelling)

I hope this helps, choosing your own topic can be very hard lol but very fun because you'll generally know more about it.

I would maybe have something much more open ended with no right nor wrong answer, just lots of different areas to look at. I guess what you have depends on whether you want it about a human teaching a rabbit something, or how rabbits learn generally, or how rabbits learn compared to other animals, or something else entirely.

The subquestions can probably only be chosen after the topic has been set.

Like if you'relooking at rabbits learning in general you could have questions about how rabbit learn their own skills, is it possible for a human to teach rabbits something specific, does the rabbit personality affect how they learn (or if they will learn), stuff like that.

If its about comparing rabbits learning to that of other (or a another) animal then its things like what mechanisms rabbits can be taught with, what mechanisms do other animals, or another animal (such as a trainable dog) use to learn, then how do they differ, can you use the same methods to teach a dog and a rabbit, etc.

Sky-O said:

I would maybe have something much more open ended with no right nor wrong answer, just lots of different areas to look at. I guess what you have depends on whether you want it about a human teaching a rabbit something, or how rabbits learn generally, or how rabbits learn compared to other animals, or something else entirely.

That's the problem with the "Can you teach a rabbit something" question: We're not supposed to have a mainquestion that can't be answered with "yes" or "no", that's not ehm, wide? enough.

The subquestions can probably only be chosen after the topic has been set.

And that's the problem.. I wanted to do it about rabbits and learning, but now it seems to be impossible to find a main question that's appropriate. No main question, no subquestions..

Like if you'relooking at rabbits learning in general you could have questions about how rabbit learn their own skills, is it possible for a human to teach rabbits something specific, does the rabbit personality affect how they learn (or if they will learn), stuff like that.

If its about comparing rabbits learning to that of other (or a another) animal then its things like what mechanisms rabbits can be taught with, what mechanisms do other animals, or another animal (such as a trainable dog) use to learn, then how do they differ, can you use the same methods to teach a dog and a rabbit, etc.

Click to expand...

Pfffff, I wish I had thought about this a bit longer.. I had to choose a subject in June and I thought, it's still ages away, I'll start my experiment and I'll see about my main question.. But now it's only a month away, I have not finished my experiment due to all kinds of problems with the rabbits I used, I have nothing..

And with my experiment I wanted to find out if there is any difference between the learning abilities of rabbits that live together and rabbits that live solitary.. But I started out with not that many rabbits (two pairs, two single buns) and now I have one trio and one single rabbit left. (My own pair became a trio, one of the buns from the other pair got diagnosed with some serious spinalproblems so we thought it would be wiser to take him and his partner out of the project.)

Someone suggested dropping the whole bunny/learning subject and switching to clickertraining in general. I can still use my experiment, just have to expandit a bit maybe.. But then I still need a mainquestion.. :roll:

How about using the work you've done so far as a sub question, so start with

What's the most successful way of training rabbits?

Then have sub questions:

- Is clicker training more effective than standard reward based training?
- Does the most effective training method depend on the type of 'trick' being taught?
- Does the best training method vary depending on the type of rabbit being taught? i.e. neutered, male/female etc.
- Does having other rabbits present effect the success of training?

I don't think it's assuming to say that you can train a rabbit, as most animals can learnt to some extent even if it's just that the food always appears in the same spot or the smell of a predator is bad.

Tamsin said:

How about using the work you've done so far as a sub question, so start with

What's the most successful way of training rabbits?

Then have sub questions:

- Is clicker training more effective than standard reward based training?
- Does the most effective training method depend on the type of 'trick' being taught?
- Does the best training method vary depending on the type of rabbit being taught? i.e. neutered, male/female etc.
- Does having other rabbits present effect the success of training?

I don't think it's assuming to say that you can train a rabbit, as most animals can learnt to some extent even if it's just that the food always appears in the same spot or the smell of a predator is bad.

Click to expand...

Hey, thanks! Sounds good! I'm not sure it's enough though but this is much more than I came up with so far..

Why, o why did I wait until the last moment..... :roll: