Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chapter 4
Designing Studies
4.1
According to a
Common Sense Media study,
nine out of ten 13- to 17-yearolds have used some form of
social media. Three out of four
teenagers currently have a profile
on a social networking site, and
one in five has a current Twitter
account. 68% of all teens say
Facebook is their main social
networking site, compared to 6%
for Twitter, 1% for Google Plus,
and 1% for MySpace.
Underage Drinking
Can we trust the results? That depends on how the data were produced.
Definition:
The population in a statistical study is the entire group of individuals
about which we want information.
A sample is the part of the population from which we actually collect
information. We use information from a sample to draw conclusions
about the entire population.
Population
Sample
Definition:
Choosing individuals who are easiest to reach results
in a convenience sample.
Convenience samples often produce unrepresentative
datawhy?
Definition:
The design of a statistical study shows bias if it
systematically favors certain outcomes.
Definition:
A voluntary response sample consists of people who
choose themselves by responding to a general appeal.
Voluntary response samples show bias because
people with strong opinions (often in the same
direction) are most likely to respond.
For each of the following situations, identify the sampling method used. Then
explain how the sampling method could lead to bias.
a)A farmer brings a juice company several crates of oranges each week. A company
inspector looks at 10 oranges from the top of each crate before deciding whether to
buy all the oranges.
a.The ABC program Nightline once asked whether the United Nations should
continue to have its headquarters in the US. Viewers were invited to call one
telephone number to respond Yes and another for No. There was a charge for
calling either number. More that 186,000 callers responded and 67% said, No.
Definition:
A simple random sample (SRS) of size n consists
of n individuals from the population chosen in such a
way that every set of n individuals has an equal
chance to be the sample actually selected.
In practice, people use random numbers generated by a
computer or calculator to choose samples. If you dont have
technology handy, you can use a table of random digits.
Definition:
A simple random sample (SRS) of size n consists
of n individuals from the population chosen in such a
way that every set of n individuals has an equal
chance to be the sample actually selected.
Select a sample of size 4 from our class to illustrate the definition of SRS
Need two recorders
Lets force the number the sample to have 2 girls and 2 boys.
Why is this not an SRS?
Since samples of 4 that do not contain 2 girls and 2 boys have no chance of
occurring. In an SRS, each possible sample of 4 has the same chance of
occurring.
Definition:
A table of random digits is a long string of the digits 0, 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 with these properties:
Each entry in the table is equally likely to be any of the 10
digits 0 - 9.
The entries are independent of each other. That is,
knowledge of one part of the table gives no information
about any other part.
01 Aloha Kai
02 Anchor Down
03 Banana Bay
04 Banyan Tree
05 Beach Castle
06 Best Western
07 Cabana
69051
08 Captiva
09 Casa del Mar
10 Coconuts
11 Diplomat
12 Holiday Inn
13 Lime Tree
14 Outrigger
15 Palm Tree
16 Radisson
17 Ramada
18 Sandpiper
19 Sea Castle
20 Sea Club
21 Sea Grape
22 Sea Shell
23 Silver Beach
24 Sunset Beach
25 Tradewinds
26 Tropical Breeze
27 Tropical Shores
28 Veranda
69 05 16 48 17 87 17 40 95 17 84 53 40 64 89 87 20
Our SRS of 4 hotels for the editors to contact is: 05 Beach
Castle, 16 Radisson, 17 Ramada, and 20 Sea Club.
ACU#2
08 Captiva
09 Casa del Mar
10 Coconuts
11 Diplomat
12 Holiday Inn
13 Lime Tree
14 Outrigger
15 Palm Tree
16 Radisson
17 Ramada
18 Sandpiper
19 Sea Castle
20 Sea Club
21 Sea Grape
22 Sea Shell
23 Silver Beach
24 Sunset Beach
25 Tradewinds
26 Tropical Breeze
27 Tropical Shores
28 Veranda
A universitys financial aid office wants to know how much it can expect
students to earn from summer employment. This information will be used to
set the level of financial aid. The population contains 3478 students who
have completed at least one year of study but have not yet graduated. A
questionnaire will be sent to an SRS of 100 of these students drawn from an
alphabetized list.
(a)Describe how you will select the sample.
(b) Starting at line 135, use the portion of the random digits table below to
select the first three students in the sample.
135 66925 55658 39100 78458 11206 19876 87151 31260
136 08421 44753 77377 28744 75592 08563 79140 92454
137 53645 66812 61421 47836 12609 15373 98481 14592
SRS:
every individual has = chance of getting picked,
every sample of the size you are drawing has
= chance of getting picked
Unfortunately, its usually very difficult to actually
get an SRS from the population of interest.
Sometimes, there are also statistical advantages
to using more complex samplings methods.
Definition:
To select a stratified random sample, first classify the
population into groups of similar individuals, called
strata. Then choose a separate SRS in each stratum
and combine these SRSs to form the full sample.
Definition:
To take a cluster sample, first divide the population
into smaller groups. Ideally, these clusters should
mirror the characteristics of the population. Then
choose an SRS of the clusters. All individuals in the
chosen clusters are included in the sample.
Sampling Sunflowers
2.
18. Dead trees. On the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park,
many mature pine trees are dying due to infestation by pine beetles.
Scientists would like to use sampling to estimate the proportion of all
pine trees in the area that have been infected.
(a) Explain why it wouldnt be practical for scientists to obtain an SRS in
this setting.
To obtain an SRS, every tree would need to have an equal chance of being
included in the sample. It is not practical to even identify every tree in the park.
18. Dead trees. On the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park,
many mature pine trees are dying due to infestation by pine beetles.
Scientists would like to use sampling to estimate the proportion of all
pine trees in the area that have been infected.
(b) A possible alternative would be to use every pine tree along the
parks main road as a sample. Why is this sampling method biased?
18. Dead trees. On the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park,
many mature pine trees are dying due to infestation by pine beetles.
Scientists would like to use sampling to estimate the proportion of all
pine trees in the area that have been infected.
(c) Suppose that a more complicated random sampling plan is carried
out, and that 35% of the pine trees in the sample are infested by the
pine beetle. Can scientists conclude that 35% of all the pine trees on the
west side of the park are infested? Why or why not?
The scientists can be confident that the actual percent of pine trees in
the area that are infected by the pine beetle is near 35%, although there
is always some error associated with using sampling to estimate
population parameters.
Parameter-is a number that describes some characteristic of the
population
Sampling errors
Non-sampling errors
Sampling errors
Sampling errors are mistakes made in the process of taking a sample
that could lead to inaccurate information about the population.
Non-sampling errors
Nonresponse occurs when an individual chosen for the
sample cant be contacted or refuses to participate.
Response bias is when people intentionally answer wrong
Poor wording of questions
+ Section 4.2
Experiments
Learning Objectives
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/a
pc/public/repository/ap10_statistic
s_form_b_q2.pdf
Experiments
accident deaths
life expectancy
The November 2009 issue of Nutrition Action discusses what the current
research tells us about the supposed benefits of soy. For a long time,
scientists have believed that the soy foods in Asian diets explains the
lower rates of breast cancer, prostate cancer, osteoporosis, and heart
disease in places like China and Japan. However, when experiments
were conducted, soy either had no effect or a very small effect on the
health of the participants. For example, several different studies
randomly assigned elderly women either to soy or placebo, and none of
the studies showed that soy was more beneficial for preventing
osteoporosis. So what explains the lower rates of osteoporosis in Asian
cultures? We still dont know. It could be due to genetics, other dietary
factors, or any other difference between Asian cultures and non-Asian
cultures.
An explanatory variable may help explain or influence changes in a
response variable.
Whether the woman consumed soy.
A response variable measures an outcome of a study.
The overall health of the woman
Definition:
A lurking variable is a variable that is not among the
explanatory or response variables in a study but that may
influence the response variable.
Confounding occurs when two variables are associated in
such a way that their effects on a response variable cannot be
distinguished from each other.
Well-designed experiments take steps to avoid confounding.
Experiments
Definition:
A specific condition applied to the individuals in an experiment is
called a treatment. If an experiment has several explanatory
variables, a treatment is a combination of specific values of these
variables.
The experimental units are the smallest collection of individuals
to which treatments are applied. When the units are human
beings, they often are called subjects.
Sometimes, the explanatory variables in an experiment are called factors.
Many experiments study the joint effects of several factors. In such an
experiment, each treatment is formed by combining a specific value (often
called a level) of each of the factors.
Experiments
+
Experiment
Experimental
Units
Students --->
Treatment
Measure
Response
SAT Scores
Experiment
Comparison alone isnt enough, if the treatments are given to groups that differ
greatly, bias will result. The solution to the problem of bias is random assignment.
Definition:
In an experiment, random assignment means that
experimental units are assigned to treatments at
random, that is, using some sort of chance process.
Experiments
ACU #
Does Caffeine Affect Pulse Rate?
Many students regularly consume caffeine to help them stay alert. Thus, it
seems plausible that taking caffeine might increase an individuals pulse rate.
Is this true? One way to investigate this is to have volunteers measure their
pulse rates, drink some cola with caffeine, measure their pulses again after
10 minutes and calculate the increase in pulse rate. Unfortunately, even if
every students pulse rate went up, we couldnt attribute the increase to caffeine.
Suppose you have a class of 30 students who volunteer to be subjects in
the caffeine experiment described earlier.
Problem: Explain how you would randomly assign 15 students to each of
the two treatments.
Solution: Using 30 identical slips of paper, write A on 15 and B on the other
15. Mix them thoroughly in a hat and have each student select one paper.
Have each student who received an A drink the cola with caffeine and each
student who received a B to drink the cola without caffeine.
Group
1
Experimental
Units
Experiments
Definition:
In a completely randomized design, the treatments are
assigned to all the experimental units completely by chance.
Some experiments may include a control group that receives
an inactive treatment or an existing baseline treatment.
Treatmen
t1
Compare
Results
Random
Assignmen
t
Group
2
Treatmen
t2
1. Control for lurking variables that might affect the response: Use a
comparative design and ensure that the only systematic difference
between the groups is the treatment administered.
Experiments
More Caffeine
Problem: Explain how to use all three principles of experimental design in the
caffeine experiment.
Solution:
Control:
There should be a control group that receives non-caffeinated cola. Also, the
subjects in each group should receive exactly the same amount of cola served
at the same temperature. Also, each type of cola should look and taste exactly
the same and have the same amount of sugar. Subjects should drink the cola
at the same rate and wait the same amount of time before measuring their pulse
rates. If all of these lurking variables are controlled, they will not be confounded
with caffeine or be an additional source of variability in pulse rates.
Randomization:
Subjects should be randomly assigned to one of the two treatments. This
should roughly balance out the effects of the lurking variables we cannot control,
such as body size, caffeine tolerance, and the amount of food recently eaten.
Replication:
We want to use as many subjects as possible to help make the treatment
groups as equivalent as possible. This will give us a better chance to see the
effects of caffeine, if there are any.
Experiments
Experiments
The caffeine experiment can be conducted in a doubleblind manner. It is very important that the subjects be
unaware of which treatment they are receiving. To make
sure they are blind, the two colas must look and taste
exactly the same. To be double-blind, the people
measuring the pulse rates and interacting with the
subjects should also be unaware of which subjects
are getting which treatments. To make this happen,
have the subjects measure their own pulse since they are
already blind. Also have another teacher prepare the
colas with labels A and B and then leave the room before
anyone else gets there. Only after the experiment is
complete will this teacher come back to reveal which
treatment is which.
Definition:
An observed effect so large that it would rarely occur by chance is
called statistically significant.
A statistically significant association in data from a well-designed
experiment does imply causation.
Experiments
Growing Tomatoes
Does adding fertilizer affect the productivity of tomato plants?
How about the amount of water given to the plants? To answer
these questions, a gardener plants 24 similar tomato plants in
identical pots in his greenhouse. He will add fertilizer to the soil in
half of the pots. Also, he will water 8 of the plants with 0.5 gallons
of water per day, 8 of the plants with 1 gallon of water per day
and the remaining 8 plants with 1.5 gallons of water per day. At
the end of three months he will record the total weight of
tomatoes produced on each plant.
Problem: Identify the explanatory and response variables,
experimental units, and list all the treatments.
Growing Tomatoes
Does adding fertilizer affect the productivity of tomato plants? How about the amount of
water given to the plants? To answer these questions, a gardener plants 24 similar
tomato plants in identical pots in his greenhouse. He will add fertilizer to the soil in half
of the pots. Also, he will water 8 of the plants with 0.5 gallons of water per day, 8 of the
plants with 1 gallon of water per day and the remaining 8 plants with 1.5 gallons of water
per day. At the end of three months he will record the total weight of tomatoes produced
on each plant.
Problem: Identify the explanatory and response variables, experimental units, and list
all the treatments.
Solution: The
Experiments
Blocking
Definition
A matched-pairs design is a randomized blocked experiment
in which each block consists of a matching pair of similar
experimental units.
Chance is used to determine which unit in each pair gets each
treatment.
Sometimes, a pair in a matched-pairs design consists of a
single unit that receives both treatments. Since the order of the
treatments can influence the response, chance is used to
determine with treatment is applied first for each unit.
Experiments
Matched-Pairs Design
+
Experiments
DRIVING
Activity:
DISTRACTED
DRIVING
Are these results statistically significant?
To find out, lets see what would happen just by chance if we randomly
reassign the 48 people in this experiment to the two groups many times,
assuming the treatment received doesnt affect whether a driver stops at
the rest area
POD Roles for Activity (with each trial switch roles by going clockwise
Shuffler/DealerFlipperRecorder/Dot plotterOnly Two in Pod
Shuffler/Dealer/Flipper
Recorder/Dot plotter
DRIVING
Shuffle and deal two piles of 24 cards each the first pile represents the
cell phone group and the second pile represents the passenger group. The
shuffling reflects our assumption that the outcome for each subject is not
affected by the treatment. Record the number of drivers who fail to stop at
the rest area in each group.
Repeat this process 9 more times so that you have a total of 10 trails/
Make a class dotplot of the number of drivers in the cell phone group who failed to
stop at the rest area in each trial.
DRIVING
Chapter 4
Designing Studies
4.1
4.2
Experiments
4.3
Scope of Inference
: Silence is Golden?
Many students insist that they study better when
listening to music. A teacher doubts this claim and
suspects that listening to music actually hurts academic
performance. Here are four possible study designs to
address this question at your school. In each case, the
response variable will be the students GPA at the end
of the semester.
: Silence is Golden?
Many students insist that they study better when listening to music. A teacher doubts this claim
and suspects that listening to music actually hurts academic performance. Here are four possible
study designs to address this question at your school. In each case, the response variable will be
the students GPA at the end of the semester.
1.Get all of the students in your AP Statistics class to participate in the study. Ask them
whether or not they study with music on and divide them into two groups based on their
answer to this question.
For each design, suppose that the mean GPA for students who listen to music was
significantly lower than the mean GPA of students who didnt listen to music.
Problem: What can we conclude for each design?
: Silence is Golden?
Many students insist that they study better when listening to music. A teacher doubts this claim
and suspects that listening to music actually hurts academic performance. Here are four possible
study designs to address this question at your school. In each case, the response variable will be
the students GPA at the end of the semester.
2.Select a random sample of students from your school to participate in a study. Then,
divide them into two groups as in Design 1.
For each design, suppose that the mean GPA for students who listen to music was
significantly lower than the mean GPA of students who didnt listen to music.
Problem: What can we conclude for each design?
: Silence is Golden?
Many students insist that they study better when listening to music. A teacher doubts this claim
and suspects that listening to music actually hurts academic performance. Here are four possible
study designs to address this question at your school. In each case, the response variable will be
the students GPA at the end of the semester.
3.Get all of the students in your AP Statistics class to participate in a study. Randomly assign
half of the students to listen to music while studying for the entire semester and have the
remaining half abstain from listening to music while studying.
For each design, suppose that the mean GPA for students who listen to music was
significantly lower than the mean GPA of students who didnt listen to music.
Problem: What can we conclude for each design?
: Silence is Golden?
Many students insist that they study better when listening to music. A teacher doubts this claim
and suspects that listening to music actually hurts academic performance. Here are four possible
study designs to address this question at your school. In each case, the response variable will be
the students GPA at the end of the semester.
4.Select a random sample of students from your school to participate in a study. Randomly
assign half of the students to listen to music while studying for the entire semester and have
the remaining half abstain from listening to music while studying.
For each design, suppose that the mean GPA for students who listen to music was
significantly lower than the mean GPA of students who didnt listen to music.
Problem: What can we conclude for each design?
Data Ethics