Statisticians: Nate Roman Jordan Cousin Matt Femia Eli Cleveland Dogs vs. Cats Statisticians: Nate Roman Jordan Cousin Matt Femia Eli Cleveland

Purpose We set out to compare how many students, in their households, own either cats or dogs. We found population data in which we could compare the sample to national data. Conclusively, we decided to ask students whether they owned dogs or cats. By doing so, we could compare our sample of VVS students to the national average.

Design A short survey was conducted in which we obtained our sample by collecting a survey given to random students in each of the three lunch periods. We will compare the percentage of students that have dogs vs. the percentage with cats, the average number of dogs vs. cats per household, and the raw number of students that own either dogs or cats. By gathering their responses, our sample became comparable to the population data (cited below).

http://www.avma.org/reference/marketstats/ownership.asp Dogs Cats Percent of Households owning 37.2% 32.4% Number of Households owning 43,021,000 37,460,000 Average Number per Household 1.7 2.2

Margin of Error Cats E= 1.96 (.2889)(.7111)  45 E= .1324 Dogs E= 1.96  (.8)(.2)  45 E= .1169

Calculations (Cats) H0: =32.4% Z = p̂-p = (.2889-.324)= -.50 H1: <32.4% pq/n (.324)(.676)/45 = .05 n=45 P= .3085 r=13 p =28.89% =71.11% P> : Do not reject H0 -.5

Calculations (Dogs) H0: =37.2% Z = p̂-p = .8-.372 = 5.94 H1: 37.2% pq/n  .233616/45 = .05 n=45 P= approximately 0 r=36 p̂ =.80 =.20 p:  Reject H0 5.94

Conclusions After extensive research about cat and dog ownership, we statisticians have concluded that the ownership of dogs in VVS is staggeringly higher than the national average. However, the ownership of cats in VVS was very similar to the national average. The students that we surveyed were very cooperative and their information was very helpful in that it gave us an idea of how the students at VVS compare to the national average in dog and cat ownership percentage. They also helped prove our hypothesis correct that people prefer to own dogs rather than cats.

Modifications While doing our statistical project we feel that these alterations would help to make our sample data closer to the population data: If we were to increase our sample size, the data would be much closer to the data represented by the population. Some additions to our survey would also help to gather more data to explain our result such as: • Adding more animals to the survey or an “other” option so that we could see if people without dogs or cats had another kind of pet. • Adding questions referring to the families of the survey taker, such as: “Do your parents or siblings prefer cats or dogs?” or “Are your parents or siblings allergic to cats or dogs?” Next time we could have more assurance that the individuals in our sample were truthful by asking the parents of the individuals.

Biases While conducting our experiment we realized some potential biases that we faced that would cause us to adapt our next experiment. Some of the parents of the people that we surveyed could effect their acquisition of a pet. In that, the parents could prefer one over the other or the parents could be allergic to one or the other or both. There is always the possibility that people are being untruthful, as well. Individuals of our sample could have just acquired or just lost a pet.

The ownership of Cats vs. Dogs at VVS

Evaluation It would appear that our experiment was relatively problem free and our findings were very interesting. In our experiment, we asked if individuals were allergic to either pet in order to remove some bias. We found that the amount of individuals who were allergic to either of the pets was very low and didn’t seem to effect our outcomes whatsoever.