Megan Feldpausch and Alex Gibbons

Sarah Lewis
Stats and Prob
14 September 2018
Most common colors of clothing
For our study, we observed the color of shirts everybody was wearing for the last three
days. The people we studied were the statistics class of 2018-2019. In this study, we used the
entire population of the stats class, which consists of mostly seniors along with one junior.
For this study, we chose to approach it observationally. We watched each person in the
stats class every day for three days to see what color shirt they were wearing. We chose to do
an observational study because it was the best and easiest way to collect our data. In our study,
the variable happened to be the number of people wearing a certain color of shirt for each of the
three days we conducted the study. This variable is quantitative, because we counted the
number of people wearing each color shirt in the population of 27. The data we collected
represented a ratio level of measurement. The data was all collected in a numerical way and
there was a true zero, because nobody can wear less than no colors in any of the categories.
Because we used the entire population, we did not have to work to avoid bias in our
study. We used the entire class so there was no question of favoritism for any of the subjects in
this study. Since this study utilized the entire population, we also did not have to account for
sampling errors because we did not need samples.
We encountered a couple of problems in our study, though. During the three days of our
study there was one person gone each day. This resulted in some undercoverage because we
could not observe the color of shirt or sweatshirt they were wearing. We also encountered a non
sampling error in our study. We did not account for multi-colored shirts like tie dye or rainbow.
We solved this problem by counting the shirt as the color that is primarily contained in the shirt.
This led to some inaccuracy in our study because even though people were wearing multi-
colored shirts they got written down as only having one color on.
We got off pretty easy because we didn’t do an experiment. Because we chose to do an
observational study, we didn’t have to set up a control group to test anything. This also meant
we didn’t need to account for a placebo either. Since it was only the color of people’s shirts
there was no way that someone could have an instance of the placebo effect. We also didn't
have to worry about a double blind study because we didn't do an experimental study. If we
were to do a double blind study it wouldn’t make sense because we have to see what color
people are wearing each day.
Finally, we did not have to worry about privacy concerns because this was purely an
observational study. We didn't ask any provoking questions or make any experiment where
someone was uncomfortable. We simply observed people each day in a public setting to avoid
people getting uncomfortable. The observational study was the best way to keep everyone
within their own comfort of privacy.

DAY 1 DAY 2 DAY 3 FINAL

GREEN 0 0 6 6

YELLOW 0 0 2 2

PINK 3 3 0 6

PURPLE 1 4 0 5

BLUE 8 6 5 19

BLACK 1 3 3 7

RED 3 1 1 5

GREY 6 6 9 21

WHITE 4 2 0 6

BROWN 0 1 0 1

TOTAL 26 26 26 78