Oceanography NST 1060
Fall 2019
Lab 5: Marine Products – Evaluating the effectiveness and environmental impact
Many baths, beauty, and personal care products are marketed as being derived from marine ingredients. These products appeal to many consumers for a variety of reasons. In this lab, you will evaluate the differences between Personal Care Products that are marketed as ‘marine’ (or ‘ocean’) based and ‘conventional.’
The objective of this lab is to 1) design and carry out a survey of your peers that evaluates the personal opinions of your classmates regarding the difference in a marine vs. conventional product, and 2) evaluate the ecological impacts of using marine-based products.
Section A – Evaluating the product
Lab Procedure: Record your evaluations on the datasheet and include the data sheet with the lab report. Be sure to type in the data, not handwritten.
- On the datasheet (separate file), record what type of product you are evaluating (e.g. toothpaste, fragrance).
- Examine the ingredients of each product. Record on the datasheet the first five ingredients. Plus, for the marine-based product, identify the ‘marine-derived’ ingredient(s) on the datasheet (this will not be obvious – do some online searching).
- Use the internet to determine an estimated price for the products. Record the cost per ounce of the product (If your product is not typically reported as price per ‘ounce’, you can record a different metric but please specify the unit.
- Dispense sub-sample of each product into the appropriate container and evaluate the product:
- the products smell, feel, or look different?
- their viscosity (‘thickness’) similar? (Thicker = more viscous)
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- For liquid and cream products: recall from our seawater lab that density is a measure of mass of sample per unit volume (i.e., mg/L). Record on the datasheet the weight and volume of each product and calculate the density of each in similar units.
Section B – Design an experiment to evaluate people’s perceptions of the product
In this section of the lab you must design a survey to test whether consumers can determine the difference in the two products and whether consumers prefer the marine-derived product over the conventional product.
Develop a hypothesis that you plan to test, design the experiment (including designing your own datasheet – see below for more details), and conduct a consumer survey using your peers in the classroom.
Record your data on a datasheet that you design and evaluate the response in a scientific manner to determine the consumer preference.
YOU CANNOT USE ‘SURVEY MONKEY’ OR ‘QUALTRICS’ TO DO THE ANALYSIS. Do you own original analysis using Excel.
We strongly suggest that you show at least one question to your instructor so that they can confirm your study design/survey questions.
Requirements for Survey Design:
1.
You should ask five questions of seven people. Questions should relate to product attributes and ingredients.
- All responses must be designed with quantitative answers that are on a continuous scale
(i.e.
On a scale of one to five, with five being the highest, how would you rate the color of this product?). Do not ask binary questions (i.e. Which product would you prefer? Yes/No)
- You must do some type of statistical analysis on the five questions (not just calculate averages). We suggest you use a T-test (simple student two-way T-test), which is a statistical test to examine the differences between two groups. Excel does this test quite easily.
Analysis and Conclusions:
Q1. What is the hypothesis that you are testing?
H0: There is not statistical difference between the preference for conventional (Suave Professional) and marine-based (The Seaweed Bath Co. Moisturizing Argan Shampoo) haircare products.
H1: There is a statistical preference for either the conventional or marine-based haircare products.
Q2: What questions did you ask? (List all five questions).
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely would you be to use the following product?
- How much would you pay for the following products ($0-$15)?
- With 1 being the worst and 5 being the best, how would you rate the branding on the following products?
- On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the texture of the following products?
- Out of 10, how would you rate your comfort level with the listed ingredients?
Q3. What were the results of your statistical analysis?
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely would you be to use the following product?
- The average likelihood rating given for the conventional shampoo was higher (6.43/10) versus that of the marine-based shampoo, which averaged 4.43/10. This being said, because p-value of .0785> α=.05 we have insufficient evidence to conclude that there is a statistical difference between the desire to use conventional or marine-based shampoo
- How much would you pay for the following products ($0-$15)?
- While the average response for willingness to pay for marine-based shampoo was $1.2 higher at $8.21, a p-value of .5416> α=.05 suggests that we have insufficient evidence to conclude that there is a statistical difference between the amount respondents would pay for conventional versus marine-based shampoo
- With 1 being the worst and 5 being the best, how would you rate the branding on the following products?
- It is clear that the branding of the marine product was favored over that of the conventional product. The average rating for the marine product was 4.14/5 whereas the conventional only scored an average of 2.29/5. Because p-value of .000083< α=.05 we have sufficient evidence to conclude that the branding of the marine product was favorable over that of the conventional.
- On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the texture of the following products?
- Both products averaged a 3.q4 out of five, therefore p-value=1> α=.05, and we have insufficient evidence to conclude a statistical preference in texture.
- Out of 10, how would you rate your comfort level with the listed ingredients?
- Surprisingly, more people rated the conventional product in a matter suggesting that they were comfortable with the ingredients. Although the average was higher, a p-value of .1238 at the 95% confidence level is insufficient to conclude that respondents in general are more comfortable with conventional products versus marine products.
Be sure to tell us in real words what the statistics mean (i.e. don’t just say, “p-value was 0.04”). Explain what the results means in the context of each question.
Include your original datasheet that you created that lists the questions, responses, and p-values with the lab report.
Q4. Did the survey results allow you to confirm or reject your hypothesis?
Because 4/5 questions resulted in p-values that were greater than the threshold, we are 95% confident that there is statistical indifference between the two products, failing to reject the null hypothesis. The question that suggests a preference towards the marine-based product’s packaging is not sufficient to conclude that the product as a whole is desired.
Q5: Provide an original graph showing your results and include a one sentence description regarding the message of the graph. (The graph type is your choice – a bar chart, a pie chart, etc. Make sure you label your axis, provide a title, etc. Your description should answer the question, “what is the message that this graph is trying to communicate?”)
The average percentage ratings between all five questions show almost perfect indifference between the conventional and marine-based shampoo.
Q6. Given more time and resources, how would you improve on your study design to better evaluate the differences between marine vs. conventional products?
- The largest improvement that could be made in this study design is simply the number of participants. Statistically speaking, test statistics such as the T-test do not become valid measures until the sample side becomes or exceeds 30.
Additionally, we would allow participants to use the products in a double-blind test and avoid asking questions about the branding until after the use test was complete.
Section C – Research
Do related research on the internet (cite at least two of your sources) to answer these questions:
Q6. What are the ecological implications of using this marine-based ingredient in this product? Consider where this ingredient comes from (i.e., what part of the ocean?), how it is harvested, and the ecological impacts of this harvest (i.e., are the consequences of removing this product from the ocean?).
Q7. Do you think the ecological impacts of this harvest taken into account in the price? Why or why not?
Bonus Points (2): Focusing on the ingredients is useful to evaluate ecological impacts of our purchase. However, there are other ways that personal care products impact the ocean. List one other factor (1 pt) that business leaders hould consider if they are trying to reduce the ecological impact of selling personal care products. Then, in one sentence, describe why this factor is important to consider from an ecological perspective (1 pt).
**** Report Requirements:
- Cover Sheet as described on Canvas
- Data sheet for evaluating the two products
- Data Sheet for survey including questions asked, individual answers, the statistical results, and one graph.
Typed answer to Analysis and Conclusions questions.
Do not rewrite the questions.
- Simply label them Q1., Q2., Q3., etc.