The research problem looks at the trial of a new drug tested to determine

whether it lowered cholesterol levels in patients. This was then compared to the
results of a placebo drug which was to create a control group for comparison.
The data was collected both before and after the administering of the drug.
For this investigation I looked at the figures given before looking at the averages
of all of the results to determine whether there were any significant differences
in the data and then calculating the standard deviation to determine how spread
out the data was.
Cholester
ol Level
3.0 L >
3.5
3.5 L >
4.0
4.0 L >
4.5
4.5 L >
5.0
5.0 L >
5.5
5.5 L >
6.0
6.0 L >
6.5
6.5 L >
7.0
7.0 L >
7.5
7.5 L >
8.0
8.0 L >
8.5
8.5 L >
9.0
Mean
Standard
Dev.

Before the
Experimen
t

25 participants
taking the Drug

25 Participants
taking the Placebo

1.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

4.0

0.0

13.0

0.0

4.0

0.0

2.0

1.0

11

1.0

5.0

0.0

6.0

11

0.0

3.0

0.0

4.0

0.0

4.0

4
7.1

0.0
4.8

1.0
7.1

0.84

0.58

0.81

This data shows that the drug actually makes a significant difference in the
cholesterol levels found in patients. The standard deviation is small which
suggests that the data is quite well grouped and the average cholesterol level
suggests that the drug is successful in lowering cholesterol levels.
The flaw with the experiment is that there is no mention of any control or
restriction in cholesterol consumption therefore this data may be the result of
alteration in peoples daily cholesterol consumption. Also there could be more
analysis conducted with this data to prove this to be true.