Students in an Introductory Statistics class at BYU-Idaho were studying prices of cold cereal at grocery stores in Rexburg. To get a sample of cold cereal prices, they went to Albertson's and rolled a die to decide which box from the left of the top shelf they would start on. They then recorded every 6th cereal after the first, moving from left to right down the shelves, recording the name, size, and price of each cereal in their sample. Is this study an experiment or an observational study, and why? a. An observational study, because the students had no control over which cereals were selected. b. An observational study, because the students did not impose any treatment on the cereals. c. An experiment, because the students had control over which sampling method they used. d. An experiment, because the students had control over which cereals would be selected for the study.

Question

Social Studies

Blake Gibbs

11 October, 02:03

Students in an Introductory Statistics class at BYU-Idaho were studying prices of cold cereal at grocery stores in Rexburg. To get a sample of cold cereal prices, they went to Albertson's and rolled a die to decide which box from the left of the top shelf they would start on. They then recorded every 6th cereal after the first, moving from left to right down the shelves, recording the name, size, and price of each cereal in their sample. Is this study an experiment or an observational study, and why? a. An observational study, because the students had no control over which cereals were selected. b. An observational study, because the students did not impose any treatment on the cereals. c. An experiment, because the students had control over which sampling method they used. d. An experiment, because the students had control over which cereals would be selected for the study.

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Argus · Answer 1

d. An experiment, because the students had control over which cereals would be selected for the study.

Explanation:

In the context, the students are conducting an experiment because the students are selecting the cereals for which they noting down the information or data. In this the students are not just observing the sample but are actually taking the readings and notes down the sizes, names and prices of each sixth cereal from the row. Thus it is an experiment.

Hence the correct option is (d).