Do Choosy Mothers Choose Jif?

Team 25

Population

All Mothers with at least one child in Elementary school.

Sampling Design

• We will use a random number generator to choose an elementary school by putting every elementary school in the country in order alphabetically and then assign them a number. We will only choose one school.

• We will choose the representative sample by obtaining a numerical and alphabetical list of all the mothers of children at the elementary school.

• All mothers will recieve a survey. The top 100 mothers that qualified as “choosy” will be put in a numerical and alphabetical list.

• We will use a random number generator to select 100 numbers, and then select the mothers that were assigned those numbers, and skip any repeats.

Evaluating Choosiness

Each mother will be given a survey. The survey will ask 5 questions and the answers will range from likely to unlikely, a form of a likert scale. The higher the score, the more “choosy” the mother is.

Answers scale:3-likely2-somewhat likely1-unlikely

Survey Questions

1. At the supermarket, how likely are you to choose a brand name product?

2. In the produce section, how likely are you to choose an organic product?

3. While shopping, how likely are you to shop at a high-end store?4. How likely are you to read the ingredients on the groceries before you buy them?

5. How likely are you to pack your child’s lunch every day rather than allow them to buy their own lunch on school?

Blocking

Blocking will not be involved in this study.All subjects (mothers) will receive each of the three treatments (types of peanut butter).

Putting the experiment in action

After selecting the choosey mothers, they will participate in a double blinded peanut butter taste test. Each mother will try three different brands of peanut butter, not knowing which one is which. We will have Jif, Skippy and Peter Pan. Skippy and Peter Pan will act as control groups. They will tell their observer which one was their favorite. The observers will not know which one is which either, therefore making this a double-blinded experiment so there is no bias from the mothers or the observers. After all the results are gathered from the locations, we will compare and see which peanut butter was the favorite among the mothers.

Compare Favorite Type of Peanut Butter

Diagram

100 Choosey Mothers

Treatment 1: Jif

Treatment 2: Skippy

Treatment 3: Peter Pan

Concerns

•Lurking variables such as household income

•A mother might be less choosy if she cannot afford brand named items, organic products, or shopping at high end stores.