Colorful experiment? In a recent article published in Quality Progress, each student in a statistics class had a randomly assigned bag of peanut M&M’s® and counted the number of each color (Blue, Red, Orange, Green, Brown, Yellow). The bags were all the same size (1.74 ounces). The investigators claimed to use a randomized block design, with Bag as the blocking factor. They counted the number of candies of each color in each bag. Their results are reproduced here (Lin, T., and Sanders, M.S., “A Sweet Way to Learn DOE,” Quality Progress, Feb. 2006, p. 88).

a) Was this an observational or experimental study?

b) What was the treatment? What factors were manipulated?

c) What was the response variable?

Transcribed Image Text:

Degrees Sum of Mean Source of Freedom Squares Square F-ratio P-value Bag 13 4.726 0.364 0.10 Color 5 350.679 70.136 18.72 1.000 <0.001 Error 65 243.488 3.746 Total 83 598.893