Question

Jones and Smith’s advertising company wish to know if cartoons on cereal boxes cause children to attribute higher taste ratings to the cereal. The advertising company hires a psychologist to conduct a study before developing a sales plan for the cereal. The psychologist randomly selects 24 participants for a pilot study. She randomly assigns the sample so that 12 participants eat the   cereal with the cartoon on the box while the other 12 participants eat the cereal without a cartoon on the box. All participants then rated the taste of the cereal. Here are the ratings:

Without Cartoon                                                 With Cartoon

3                                                                                            3

4                                                                                            4

7                                                                                            8

5                                                                                            7

8                                                                                            8

8                                                                                            8

4                                                                                            9

7                                                                                            4

5                                                                                            7

6                                                                                            6

6                                                                                            8

7                                                                                            4

l. What is the researcher’s hypothesis?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. What is the null hypothesis?

________________________________________________________________________

3. Exactly what mean differences are you comparing here?

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. What is the dependent variable? ________________________________________

5. What is the independent variable? __________________________________________

6. Please analyze the data with the appropriate hypothesis test on SPSS and cut and paste your SPSS results here:

Based on your SPSS results that you pasted above, please answer the following questions:

7. Please write your “statistical statement”: ___________________________________

8. Did you reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis? ____________________________

9. Please write your results in a “literature” or “research study” format:

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Answer 1

l. What is the researcher’s hypothesis?

Cartoons on cereal boxes cause children to attribute higher taste ratings to the cereal.

2. What is the null hypothesis?

Cartoons on cereal boxes have no effect on the rating given by children to the cereal.

3. Exactly what mean differences are you comparing here?

We are calculating the mean difference of ratings of children given to the boxes with and without cartoons.

4. What is the dependent variable?

The dependent variable is the rating given by the box.

5. What is the independent variable?

Independent variable is the factor of the cartoon being present on the box or not.

6. Please analyze the data with the appropriate hypothesis test on SPSS and cut and paste your SPSS results here:

Based on your SPSS results that you posted above, please answer the following questions:

7. Please write your “statistical statement”:

T-Test of difference = 0 (vs not =):

T-Value = 0.66

P-Value = 0.518

DF = 22

P-value is greater than Alpha level 0.05.

8. Did you reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis?

We fail to reject the null hypothesis.

9. Please write your results in a “literature” or “research study” format:

The p-value is not significant. We cannot reject the null hypothesis. There is no significant difference between the ratings given by the children for the cereals with cartoons and without cartoons.