A researcher is interested in whether herbal remedies are effective in relieving allergies, and
if so, which ones are most effective. The researcher takes a group of 20 allergy sufferers and randomly assigns each one to receive herbal tea, a homeopathic administration of
allergens, a traditional antihistamine, or a placebo pill. The dependent measure is the number of allergy complaints by patients during weeks 2-3 of the treatments. The research
analyzed the data using an ANOVA, which resulted in the following table:
Analysis of Variance for Herbal Remedies
DF SS MS F P
Group 3 43.75 14.583 6.01 0.000
Error 16 38.80 2.425
Total 19 82.55
Using the above table, we can conclude that:
a. the data provide strong evidence that allergy complaints are related to herbal remedies.
b. the data provide strong evidence that allergy complaints are related to herbal remedies
in the following way: The mean number of allergy complaints for people who take
placebo pills is higher than The mean number of allergy complaints for people who take
herbal tea, which in turn is higher than the mean number of allergy complaints for people
who take homeopathics or traditional antihistamines.
c. the data provide strong evidence that the four mean allergy complaint scores
(representing the four allergy remedies) are all equal.
d. the data do not provide sufficient evidence that allergy complaints are related to herbal remedies