LASA High School

Analysis of the Tendency of LASA Seniors to Go Off-Campus to Eat Lunch

An Investigation of Second Semester LASA Seniors

Mingyo Lee
Dual Credit Statistics
Mr. Kiker
1/25/2016

Introduction:
At LASA, many seniors abandon the cafeteria food and homemade meals once they are
allowed to wander off-campus in search of food. They leave campus during lunch and buy food
elsewhere for themselves and for their friends. As a senior who sometimes leaves campus to eat
as well, I took a great interest in this subject. I decided to find out the true mean number of times
LASA seniors leave school campus themselves or pay someone else to buy their lunch offcampus on a weekly basis. In other words, I decided to find the true mean number of times
LASA seniors buy off-campus lunch per week.
Body:
In this investigation, LASAs senior class was the population. Therefore, I had no need
for stratified, cluster, or systematic sampling, and utilized a simple random sample of 30 people.
One reason why my sample may not have been representative of the population could be that the
population list that I used to randomly pull my sample from does not contain all senior names. I
ensured to the best of my ability, however, that my list was accurate as possible; I checked the
names with past yearbooks and my count of names matched the front offices count of names.
Once I compiled the list of senior names, I obtained a random sample by utilizing the random
number generator at random.org, which is apparently one of the few sites one can obtain true
random numbers. The generators range was set at a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 248 since
each name on the spreadsheet correspond to a unique number between 1 and 248 (inclusive). I
then personally surveyed the people whose number came up. To calculate the confidence
intervals of my data, I utilized the t-table instead of the z-table, since I did not have the
population standard deviation to calculate my z-scores with. The Degrees of Freedom was 29
since I surveyed 30 people.

The sample mean number of times per week students go off campus was 1.05, and the
sample standard deviation was 1.282172
The 90% confidence interval for the true population mean number of times a week
students go off campus was (0.652272, 1.44772), which means that we are 90% confident that
the true population mean number of times a week students go off campus to buy lunch is
between 0.652272 and 1.44772 times a week. The equation I used was CI = x tn-1 * SE(x),
where CI is confidence interval, x is the sample mean, t is the t-score, and SE(x) is sample
standard deviation/sqrt(n). Therefore CI = 1.05 1.699 * (1.282172/sqrt(30)), which means that
the confidence interval is (0.652272, 1.44772).
The 95% confidence interval for the true population mean number of times a week
students go off campus was (0.571283, 1.52872), which means that we are 95% confident that
the true population mean number of times a week students go off campus to buy lunch is
between 0.571283 and 1.52872 times a week. The equation I used was CI = x tn-1 * SE(x),
where CI is confidence interval, x is the sample mean, t is the t-score, and SE(x) is sample
standard deviation/sqrt(n). Therefore CI = 1.05 2.045 * (1.282172/sqrt(30)), which means that
the confidence interval is (0.571283, 1.52872).
The 98% confidence interval for the true population mean number of times a week
students go off campus was (0.473667, 1.62633), which means that we are 98% confident that
the true population mean number of times a week students go off campus to buy lunch is
between 0.473667 and 1.62633 times a week. The equation I used was CI = x tn-1 * SE(x),
where CI is confidence interval, x is the sample mean, t is the t-score, and SE(x) is sample

standard deviation/sqrt(n). Therefore CI = 1.05 2.462 * (1.282172/sqrt(30)) , which means that

the confidence interval is (0.473667, 1.62633).
Conclusion:
According to the sample analysis, I am 98% confident that the mean number of times
LASA seniors go off campus is between 0.473667 and 1.62633 times a week. I would say that
this finding is curious, since I assumed that since most seniors are able to drive, most of the
subjects would go off campus to eat on every day (5 days/week) possible. I would improve this
project by changing the number of times a week to number of times a month. Many people who I
asked seemed to first answer in the number of times a month, then divide the number by 4 (the
usual number of weeks in a month) to get the number of times a week they went off campus for
lunch. Thats why I had data such as 2.5 times a week. That is technically impossible since one
cannot go off campus 0.5 times, but was recorded because the subject went off campus around
10 times a month.
Citations:
Haahr, Mads. "True Random Number Service." Random.org. Randomness and Integrity Services
Ltd., 1998. Web. 20 Jan. 2016.
The above website is the website I used to randomize the list of people I had.
Appendix
This is the paper on which I recorded my sample. As seen below, I have the names on the left,
number of times they go of campus per week in the center, and signatures from my participants
on the right.