MECU 6551

Assignment #1 – Solutions
Due: Monday, January 28th, 2013 at the beginning of class.

1. A farmer wishes to determine whether a protein additive in his cattle feed (Brand A)
is effective in increasing the weights of his cattle. He will compare three diets (Brand
A without the protein additive, Brand A mixed with a 10% solution of the protein
additive, Brand A mixed with a 20% solution of the protein additive). Suppose that he
has 30 cattle which are similar with respect to weight and age available for the
experiment, and can run the experiment for two weeks.

a) What are the experimental units, the factor and factor levels in this problem?

• Experimental units – 30 cattle

• Factor – protein additive in cattle feed (Brand A)
• Factor levels – (Three)
o Brand A mixed with a 10% solution of the protein additive
o Brand A mixed with a 20% solution of the protein additive
o Brand A without the protein additive
b) Which treatment in this experiment is the control treatment?

The control treatment is Brand A without the protein additive.

c) The farmer will weigh the cattle at the beginning and at the end of the experiment
and note the weight gains. Use a diagram to outline a completely randomized
design for this experiment.
TREATMENT  1  
Group  1  
Brand  A  without  the  
10  cattle  
Protein  additive  

TREATMENT  2  
30   Random   Group  2   Mixed  with  a  10%   Weight  of  
cattle   Allocation   10  cattle   solution  of  the  protein   the  cattle  
additive  

TREATMENT  3  
Group  3    
Mixed  with  a  20%  
10  cattle  
solution  of  the  protein  
additive  

2. You are planning to conduct a telephone survey, but you recognize that there are a
number of drawbacks to this method. Two of these drawbacks are: (i) individuals who
do not have phones will be excluded from the survey and (ii) individuals may not be
at home when you call them. What do we call these drawbacks?

i. Under coverage – occurs when a sample is chosen for the survey that does
not adequately represent the target population it aims to describe
ii. Non response – occurs when a segment of the population does not respond
 MECU 6551 Assignment #1 – Solutions 2013
 

3. A researcher is planning to conduct an experiment to compare 4 weight-loss

programs. She plans to use a block design utilizing 20 overweight women. Describe
how you would construct this experiment.

Obtain 20 overweight women who are willing to participate in the study, subjectively
divide the 20 women into 5 blocks of 4 women each (trying to make the 4 women in
each block as similar as possible), and assign the 4 weight-loss programs, at random,
the 4 women within each block. Then the women in each block will be weight, take the
percent weight loss in each block, and that will decide which weight-loss program is
more effective.

4. A researcher wishes to know whether taking Vitamin D will lower the risk of
osteoporosis in post-menopausal women. Describe a research method that would
provide a convincing answer to this question.

Would need to conduct a designed experiment.

5. A call-in poll conducted by USA Today concluded that Americans love Donald
Trump. USA Today later reported that 5640 of the 7800 calls for the poll came from
the offices owned by one man, Cincinnati financier Carl Lindner, who is a friend of
Donald Trump. Do the results of this poll contain bias? Briefly explain your answer.

Biased, overstating the popularity of Donald Trump.

6. A bank wanted to test the sensitivity of the market to two factors regarding credit
cards: annual fees charged and annual interest rate charged. Not wanting to scrimp on
sample size, the bank obtained a mailing list with 100,000 names on it. They selected
50,000 names from the list, at random, and sent each of these individuals an offer for
a credit card with a low interest rate and no annual fee. The remaining 50,000
individuals were sent an offer for a credit card with a higher interest rate and a $50
annual fee. It turned out that more than twice as many people signed up for the low
interest, no-fee card. From this, the obvious conclusion was that people prefer a low
interest, no-fee card over a high interest card with an annual fee. Unfortunately, the
results of this experiment are not very useful, as such a conclusion could probably
have been drawn without going through all of the time and effort that was spent here.
The real interesting question might have been: do people prefer “no fees” or “low
interest”? The answer to that question cannot be found here because of the poorly
planned experiment. Is this an example of: response bias, nonresponse bias,
confounding, sampling error or all of these? Briefly explain your response.

Confounding, they were measuring two variables at the same time, and the effects on
a response variable cannot be distinguished from each other.
 MECU 6551 Assignment #1 – Solutions 2013
 

7. An opinion poll calls 2,000 residential telephone numbers randomly chosen from the
telephone book and asks to speak with an adult member of the household. The
interviewer asks, “How many movies has your household watched in the movie
theatre in the past month?” Identify the population, sample, sample design and
whether or not bias is likely to be present and describe the type of bias you suspect.

• Population – The population is not specified

• Sample – 2,000 residential telephone numbers
• Sample design – Simple random design
• Some bias examples
o They are asking only people with numbers in the telephone book, they
are excluding people without a telephone, and people with a private
number that does not appear in the telephone book.
o There is not a control if the person that will answer the question is
really an adult.

8. Use the Internet or some printed material to find an example of a sample survey that
interests you. Describe the population, how the sample was collected, and some of the
conclusions. Also state the potential sources of bias for this sample. Provide a
reference including the date retrieved.

The answer will vary upon the provided example source.

9. There are two forms of sampling other than multi-stage sampling and stratified
sampling, known as cluster sampling and systematic sampling. Explore the internet
for a good description of both. Briefly describe each of these techniques and the
primary motivation for using them instead of the other sampling techniques. Provide a
reference including the date retrieved.

Systematic sample is a sample drawn by dividing the population into equal groups,
randomly selecting a number equal to or smaller than size of the groups, and drawing
the observation in each group which corresponding to that number.

Cluster sample is a sample drawn by identifying subgroups of the population as

clusters on the basis of geographical proximity and then drawing a random selection
of clusters.