This document outlines an experiment to test if eating an apple a day keeps the doctor away. It involves randomly assigning 2000 participants (1000 males and 1000 females) to either eat one apple or a placebo apple per day for a year. The number of doctor visits each participant has will be recorded and compared between the apple-eating and placebo groups. Blocking by gender and double blinding both participants and evaluators aims to get a clear result on the effect of daily apple consumption while limiting bias. Concerns include difficulty finding and following all participants for a year and creating a believable placebo apple.

1. Does an apple a day
keep the doctor
away?
Conor McPoyle and Sean (big ole nerd) Rich

2. Experimental Units
• The experimental unit of this experiment is people

3. Treatment
• One apple a day versus no apples at all

4. Response Variables
• Quantitative- The amount of times participants visited the doctor in
a year long span

5. Experimental Design
• Get a US census in alphabetical order and assign each person a number
in increasing alphabetical order, blocking by gender. Use the TI-84’s
random number generator to generate 1,000 unique numbers for males,
then repeat to find 1,000 unique numbers for females. Randomly assign
500 males to the group that will eat an apple a day, leaving the other 500
in the other treatment group of no apples. Repeat the process for
females. Give both male treatment groups a similar product to eat, with
one group receiving an actual apple and the other receiving a fake one
(placebo). Repeat for females. Don’t tell any participants which treatment
group they are in. Have each group consume their product (apple and
placebo, unbeknownst to them) once a day, and have each participant
report how many times they went to the doctors in a year. Compare and
analyze the data.

6. Experimental Design Principles
Control- The control group is the group that receives the placebo apple. It
lets us no whether or not eating an apple a day actually has any effect on
the participants.
Randomization- 1,000 males and females are randomly selected, and then
500 of each are randomly assigned to the apple treatment, with the
remaining 500 assigned to the no apple treatment. Randomization limits
bias and the effects of lurking or confounding variables.
Replication- Clear experimental design ensures that the study can be
repeated, and has no flaws, to ensure that more data can be collected from
this same experimental design in order to further support or deny a claim.

7. Blocking
• Blocking is used by gender, as the same experiment is run for 1000
males and 1000 females. This allows us to see if eating an apple a
day keeps the doctor away for males, and also for females, though
results are examined independently.

8. Blinding
• Our experiment will be double blinded. Both the evaluators and the
participants will not know whether they are receiving a real apple or
a placebo apple.

9. Concerns
• We are concerned that it will be difficult to find 2,000 participants.
We are also concerned about how long it will take, it will be difficult
to keep up with all 2,000 people over the course of a year. Next, it
will be hard to ensure that all 2,000 participants actually eat their
apple everyday. Lastly, we are concerned about the fact that there
is no such thing as placebo apples, so we will have to invent them.