Estimating Samples and Populations

When conducting an experimental research study, researchers investigate characteristics

of a sample of people.  They then generalize their results to the larger population of
people that are of interest. For example, we might conduct a research study on 120
college students who are taking a test to find out if it is better to switch your answer on a
test or keep your answer the same.  We aren’t interested only in those 120 students but
we assume that the results we find for our sample of 120 students are likely to be true for
the population of all college students.

To investigate whether we can make the assumption that a sample can be representative
of our population, we will draw a small sample of M&M candies from a bag and examine
the distribution of colors.  Can we assume that the percentage of M&M colors in our
sample is the same as the distribution in the bag?

Procedure

1. Open Excel and set up a dataset – a means of recording M&M colors (place color
labels across the top of one row, one color per cell: brown, yellow, red, orange, green,
blue)

2. Your instructor will give you a sample of M&Ms. Record the number of each color
under the label. Label this row: Sample 1.

3. Insert formulas to calculate the totals and the percent for each color (provide or receive
help from other students as needed). Create a pie chart. Compare your pie chart with the
distributions from other members of the class. Are they all the same? Why or why not?

4. Combine your data with another student and record it on your Excel worksheet as
Sample 2. Create a pie chart and compare with other students. Are they more or less
similar than from step 3?

5. Combine your pair-data with two other students and record on your Excel worksheet.
Create a pie chart and now compare it with the results provided from M&M/Mars. Look
back over your other charts and answer the first question on the Worksheet.
Worksheet

In this activity, you drew a sample of M&M candies from a bag.  You examined the color
distribution in your sample and used it to estimate the color distribution in the population
of M&Ms. You did the same with Peanut M&Ms to determine whether the color contents
of plain M&M bags is the same as peanut M&M bags – in other words, are the two
populations different?

1.     Compare the 1-person, 2-person, and 4-person percentages from the M&M bag with
the population parameters provided by the M&M/Mars company (below).  How large did
your sample need to be in order to get an accurate estimate of the population for colors?

What does this imply for research studies when we want to learn about all human beings
from the sample of subjects in our experiment?

a.     Using the 1-person data comparison, how confident would you be that your
conclusion was correct?  Why?

b.     How does your confidence level change (or not change) as your sample size
changes?  What does this imply for research studies when we want to learn how some
people are different from or similar to others?

c.     What do you think a “confidence level” means? (There’s a technical meaning we’ll
cover soon)

MARS COMPANY’S STANDARDS FOR BAGS OF M&M’S