Sample Data For Stats Classes
A couple times each year a statistics professor will ask if I have any interesting data sets he or she can use in class.
What I’ve included here is a small data set that asks a deceivingly simple question. The background for it is in Chapter 3 of Mindless Eating. The data is in an Excel spreadsheet and can be downloaded below.
Bowled Away by Free M&Ms-Directions
Bowled Away by Free M&Ms
Purpose: Will your bowl size influence how much you eat and does it influence men and women similarly?
Method: A subset of 25 undergrads from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign were allowed to take as many M&Ms as they wished on three different lab study occasions. On each of these occasions they were given one of three capacity sizes of bowls: small (8 oz), medium (16 oz), and large (24 oz). They were allowed to scoop as many M&Ms into their bowl as they planned on eating that day during that 1/2 hour experimental session. They selected their M&Ms individually and they were weighed.
On each occasion, people were given a different size bowl. There were three different bowl rotations: Rotation 1: Small, Medium, Large; Rotation 2: Medium, Large, Small; Rotation 3: Large, Small, Medium. The three dates on which this occurred were Nov 3, Nov 29, and Dec 12. Following their last session, they were debriefed as to the purpose of the study.
Questions (Basic to Advanced):
- Are men more influenced by bowl size than women?
- Is moving from a small to medium bowl more dangerous to your diet than moving from a medium to large?
- What are some of the options you have to deal with missing data?
- How should you deal with the fact there are three different rotations?