Discussion:
Q: A nutritionist heard on the radio an amazing new diet drink that if taken at bedtime you will lose weight as you're sleeping. To top it off you can eat anything you want because the diet fuel will burn it off. She thought it was another one of those false claims that would rip-off dieters and wanted to prove them wrong.
She would get a group of 10 overweight people who just enrolled in her class and tell them to eat whatever they wanted but to drink the new diet drink that she would supply for the next two weeks. She would weigh them again at the end of the two weeks. She figured if the group weighed the same or significantly more than they did prior to the two week trial period, the product was a scam.
1. What is the hypothesis that the nutritionist is investigating?
2. What is the independent variable? What are the levels of the independent variables?
3. What is the dependent variable?
4. Which statistical test would the nutritionist use to test her hypothesis?
5. For each of the sets of output below, what can you tell about the dependent variable? What decision would the nutritionist make?