Ashley Kammerman Statistics Term Project

Color key on Graph=

Red Candies= Blue
Orange Candies = Red
Yellow Candies = Yellow
Green Candies= Purple
Purple Candies = Green
Ashleys personal bag of skittles count per color
Red

Orange

Yellow

Green

Purple

10

12

15

13

Total= 57 candies
My personal bag of candies actually reflects the class average of candies per
bag pretty accurately.

Ashley Kammerman Statistics Term Project

Ashley Kammerman Statistics Term Project

Summary statistics:
Column Q3
Q1
Bag
total

14.
4

10

Max
21.4

Min

Median
3.4

12.2

Standard
Deviation
3.73

The pie chart is a good example of what we would expect to see. There is no way a candy
corporation, such as Skittles, would allow anything other than consistent or even number of
colors of candies per bag.
The pareto chart is also a good visual of what we would expect to see in a bag number of
candies. To see a bag with, for example, half as many yellow candies or red candies would be a
little questionable. The Pie Chart and Pareto Charts came out about how I expected them to.
Most of the colors in the bag have very close values, although they do vary slightly. A Pie chart
is a good way to see these values because it can show relativity as a whole.
The Boxplot and Frequency Histograms (I could not figure out the Histograms, sorry)
were very confusing to me. It is difficult to see these charts and visualize the information we
were given.
We are measuring quantities of data, however it seems more appropriate to use a Pic
Chart of Pareto Chart. Actually, now that I am looking at the Boxplot, it does not make any sense
to use the class data using this kind of chart. The Pie Chart and Pareto chart are much more
appropriate for graphing this type of data. Maybe that is why I could not wrap my brain around
making a Histogram!
The outliers have significantly affected the data and graphs. Either there was a miscount,
or a student lied about the number of skittles they had. Unfortunately, we will always have

Ashley Kammerman Statistics Term Project

human error while gathering data. Therefore, it is very important for whoever is gathering data to
analyze considers trimming the data in order to avoid catastrophic variables affecting data.
Confidence Interval Estimates:
A confidence interval is a range of values that you can be certain contains the true mean
of the population.
99% confidence interval estimate for the true proportion of yellow candies:

95% confidence interval estimate for the true mean number of candies per bag:

98% confidence interval estimate for the standard deviation of the number of candies per bag:

Ashley Kammerman Statistics Term Project

Hypothesis Tests
Hypothesis testing is used to infer a result of a hypothesis performed on sample data from
a larger population. If we have one claim and one proven statistic, we can test the claim and
decide if there is enough data to support or reject the claim.
0.05 significance level to test the claim that 20% of all Skittles candies are Red:

0.01 significance level to test the claim that the mean number of candies in a bag of Skittles is 57

Some of the possible errors that could have been made by using the data include the
possibility of outliers. Our instructor trimmed the data for us, but some of the other numbers may
have been affected by counts.

At first, I was not excited about taking this statistics class. I have never been great at

Ashley Kammerman Statistics Term Project

math and have always wondered what the point was; especially now since I have google,
calculators, and other technology to the the work for me.
That is precisely the problem: since we have these great technologies to assist with large
quantities of data, I assume that all the work has been done for me and I do not have to worry
about a thing! Because of my assumptions (and everyone elses assumption that the work is
already done for you), I can be easily manipulated by media. Anybody can make claims about
any set of data or evidence, but it does not necessarily mean it is correct. Far too often, people
are swayed to purchase an item (Over 90% effective to prevent bunions!), vote for a specific
presidential candidate (The majority of the state agrees with Mr. Whitehouses opinion, and so
should you!), or diagnose yourself with a major disease (If you have 756 out of 900 of these
symptoms, you may have fingernail and eyelash cancer!), due to the general publics
unfortunate misunderstanding of basic statistics.
The project was a good way for me to see that statistics is a life application, though it was
confusing due to the fact we were mixing categorical and quantitative data. More specifically,
the use of statcrunch to gain visual perception of data was a great way to apply statistics to real
life concepts. I feel I would have rather taken a real life survey and broken it down to see if it
was legitimate, and if the claims were close to the tests.
Overall, I am very pleased that I have taken this course. My outcomes of learning from
this project and this course as a whole have far exceeded my expectations. I would highly
recommend this course to anyone. I feel that it is part of our responsibility as a community and
as a single person to be able to understand statistics in order to make major decisions in our lives.