Honey Cures A Cough

Team 7

Many people swear that honey can cure a cough. This is known as a old wives tale. Our goal is to find an experiment that can help us and other curious statisticians decide whether or not this saying is valid.

Test subjects include elementary students with a cough.

Subjects/Experimental Units Explanatory variable (Categorical)

Honey (compare to dextromethorphan)

● Glass of water (placebo)● Glass of water with

dextromethorphan(mixed in) ● Glass of water with honey

(mixed in)

Treatments

Response Variable(s)

● Cough disappearing● Cough improving

(less coughs per minute)

Population of Interest

The population of interest is all humans.

Choosing the subjects

Students will be chosen for the experiment when they visit the nurse at all 5 of Hatboro-Horsham’s elementary schools. Their parents will be informed and asked if their child may participate.

Control RandomizationThe control of the experiment is the water.

This control is used to determine if the honey is really the treatment that cures a cough, or if it is just the water that helps the subject’s cough. We mix either honey or dextromethorphan into the water, or leave it as plain, filtered water.

The dextromethorphan is used to compare the honey treatment to a drug already on the market. We will compare the differences in efficiency.

Each child will be numbered 00-99. One third of the children will be in the control group, one third in the over the counter medicine group, and one third in the honey group.

Group 1- Glass of water

Group 2- Glass of water mixed with dextromethorphan

Group 3- Glass of water mixed with dextromethorphan

Elementary students with a cough

Even amount of numbers 1, 2, 3 are printed on slips of paper, and test subjects randomly choose a slip. This slip determines their test group.

Testing set up- before blocking.

Random

Assignm

ent

Finally, compare results of the differences between coughs, and whether or not the treatment cured the cough (compare honey and dextromethorphan to the control group).

BlockingBlocking is used to arrange our experimental units (people with a cough) into similar categories, to get the best results for the experiment overall.

Three blocks should be created:● 2 or less coughs per minute● 3-6 coughs per minute● 7-10 coughs per minute

This is to compare subjects with a similar cough, to avoid confounding variables such as a certain illness which could prevent the treatments from curing the cough.

This blocking will be decided with a 10 minute interview. When interviewing the test subjects, we will ask them simple questions (their favorite color, their favorite subject)and interviewers will tally the amount of times the child coughs.

Blocking Continued

For Randomization, the students will be numbered within each block, then their numbers will be pulled randomly out of a hat.

Students are numbered, and the numbers are randomly drawn from a hat assigned to a group.

Group 1- Glass of water

Group 2- Glass of water mixed with dextromethorphan

Group 3- Glass of water mixed with honey

Students are numbered, and the numbers are randomly drawn from a hat assigned to a group.

Group 1- Glass of water

Group 2- Glass of water mixed with dextromethorphan

Group 3- Glass of water mixed with honey

Students are numbered, and the numbers are randomly drawn from a hat assigned to a group.

Group 1- Glass of water

Group 2- Glass of water mixed with dextromethorphan

Group 3- Glass of water mixed with honey

Elementary students with a cough

3 or less coughs per 10 minutes

5-9 coughs per 10 minutes

10+ coughs per 10 minutes

Random Assignment Compare

each group(only compare the block to the same block) to determine whether or not honey cures a cough, or if the control of water is the answer (or the over the counter medicine)

BlindingSingle and double blinding is possible for this experiment, and is necessary.

The children will not be told what type of water they will be drinking, nor will the observer know what glass they ultimately drank. This is so the subject does not suppress their cough because they believe their glass of water contained honey or medicine.

No matter what, the children should be included in the blinding.

The observer could also be blinded. This would be done by allowing the subject to drink the water (either the control, with medicine, or with honey) but not telling the observer which they drank, and allow them to observe how their cough has either disappeared, improved, or not changed.

Replication

This experiment is not very difficult to replicate, because there are elementary schools all over the world, and no human is completely immune to a chest cold or a simple cough. It does not only have to be replicated with children, but could easily be replicated with coughing adults.

Concerns● The cough may go away or slow down over the period of the experiment just from time

alone.● There may not be enough students in each test group for the blocking (not many may

have 10 coughs in 10 minutes).● Each subject’s condition will be different, and there is no way to do a matched pairs

experiment.● One student may have a severe condition where none of the treatments will help his

cough alone but keep his other symptoms. Ex. Fever, flu.● Time consuming: We would have to wait for students to come to the nurse at any point

for specifically a cough. This may take a long time if we would like to use a large sample size.

● The experiment most likely has to take place during the fall/winter, because this is when more people tend to get sick.