Question

A researcher is studying whether diet pills really work. The researcher gets two groups of people. The first group of 20 people is given the diet pill to help suppress their appetite. The second group of 20 people is given a placebo. Both groups are then instructed to try to lose weight. The researcher hypothesizes that the people who were given the diet pill will lose more weight. What is the appropriate analysis?

Answer 1

The appropriate analysis for the weight loss study between a diet pill group and a placebo group is an independent samples t-test to compare the average weight loss of each group. If the p-value is below 0.05, it indicates a significant difference in weight loss attributed to the diet pill.

Step-by-step explanation:

A researcher studying whether diet pills are effective in weight loss would need to analyze the data collected from the experimental group (those who received the diet pills) and the control group (those who received the placebo). The appropriate analysis to test the researcher's hypothesis that the diet pill group will lose more weight would most likely involve a statistical test to compare the mean weight loss between the two groups. A common test for this purpose is the independent samples t-test, which can determine whether there is a statistically significant difference between the average weight loss of the two groups.

To conduct the t-test, the researcher will need the mean weight loss, the standard deviation of weight loss, and the number of participants in each group. Once the t-test is performed, if the p-value is below a predetermined significance level (often 0.05), it suggests that there is a statistically significant difference between the two groups, supporting the hypothesis that the diet pill aids in weight loss more than the placebo.