Lab-based problem examples for Physics classes

A classic purpose of experiments done in high school, college, and even for professional scientists, is to get experimental values for different constants or parameters used in theories or mathematical models. This is a fundamental piece of data analysis skills science students need. And very often, this process makes use of graphs that are linearized, and the slope of the graph can be used to get the value you are after.

For a class problem or lab, how do we go about using data to make a graph that will help us find some value of a constant? In physics, maybe we want to use data from some experiment to make a graph that will help us determine the mass of an object, or an acceleration value, or a spring constant value, or the value of a resistor or capacitor in some circuit.

To hopefully help you understand how to do this, this video provides 3 mechanics examples that outline the way of thinking in lab-based problems.