Throughout this course we will be using m&ms® data to help explain some of the concepts being taught as well as give you a feel for how these methods can be used. We will be exploring plain m&ms® and I have chosen to use the 1.69 oz size bags for convenience and affordability. From a larger perspective, the purpose of our report is to examine the packaging process for plain 1.69 ounce bags of m&ms®.
In order to get started, everyone needs to visit three (3) different stores and purchase a plain m&ms® 1.69 oz bag of candy. It is not necessary to keep track of which bag came from which store. Why do we need to do this? We are taking a sample of the population of all 1.69 oz bags of plain m&ms® that are produced. In order for our results to be meaningful, we need a random sample. Random samples are found by sampling at complete and total random. By visiting three different stores and then randomly selecting a bag from the display, we are assuring that we are obtaining a true random sample. Other sampling methods will also produce a random sample. The concepts of population, sample, and sampling methods will be explained further in Chapter 1.
Download the mnminput.xls file found in the Student Center under Course Documents. Once you have your three bags, you will need to open each one individually and record the number of candies of each color within the bag (blue, orange, green, yellow, red, and brown) into the file. Once you have done this for each bag, save the file and submit your file through the
