Assignment

One of the products that Company W makes is snack foods. The research and development department of Company W has developed a new formula for one type of snack food that is cheaper to make than the current formula. They want to test the new formula with consumers. They want to see if consumers can tell the difference between the old and new formulas. You propose to conduct this test and analyze the results in line with WidgeCorp's approach to gathering statistical data and use it to form business intelligence decisions. You first need to explain the process to senior management at Company W. You advocate using an unbiased sample of consumers in their test, so that Company W is randomly selecting people based on the following: age; whether or not they have kids; where they live; how often they buy snack foods; and whether or not they already buy the current product.

Prepare a presentation that addresses the following:

• List at least 3 qualitative attributes of the snack food about which they might want to ask consumers. Make sure at least 1 of them is nominal.

• For each attribute that is ordinal, assign names for the endpoints of a 5 point rating scale.
• Explain the difference between nominal and ordinal data.
• Explain how nominal and ordinal data relate to a rating scale.
• List at least 2 quantitative attributes of snack food that the scientists might want to measure.
• Explain the difference between interval and ratio data.
• Include in your presentation the concept of business intelligence.
• Include in your presentation the difference between a population and a sample.
• Note why it is important to avoid bias when conducting research (see note below).

Note: Give 2 examples of possible populations for this test.