question archive You just saw a commercial for the Tread Master, an exercise machine that claims an average weight loss of 10 pounds
You just saw a commercial for the Tread Master, an exercise machine that claims an average weight loss of 10 pounds
Subject:StatisticsPrice: Bought3
You just saw a commercial for the Tread Master, an exercise machine that claims an average weight loss of 10 pounds. A commercial for the Climber, a competing product, claims that only 1 out of 10 users of the Tread Master lost any weight at all. The rest of them gained weight. How can both of these claims be true?
Professor and Class,
For ease of quick math, let us assume that the sample size used in calculation for Tread Master's experiment average is 10. This means 10 people used the Tread Master and their results were recorded, one would have to lose weight, and 9 would have to gain weight. Let us assume the following is true from their experiment:
- Sample size of 10 from population. Lind, Marchal, & Wathen (2018) define a sample as "a portion, or part, of the population of interest."
- 1 person lost 109 pounds
- 9 people gained 1 pound each
- This produces an average weight loss of 10 pounds when the results of all 10 samples are averaged. SEE ATTACHED EXCELL chart.
While it is true that the average of the sample's results is a loss of 10 pounds, it is also true that only 1 out of the 10 people lost weight, while 9 others each gained 1 pound. From this, we can see that the Climber's claims are also true. The difference is how the data is being used to promote the Tread Master and the Climber's marketing tactic. Tread Master is presenting this statistic in a positive way by implying that using the Tread Master will result in an average weight loss of 10 pounds. The Climber is using the same statistic to undermine the legitimacy of the Tread Masters product.
