Delicious or Malicious?

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective is to find out if age, gender, or occupation matter in distinguishing a candy from a non-edible (medication, rock, Lego, mothball). I hypothesized that the older you are, and if you are a heath-professional, the more likely you are able to tell the difference between a candy and non-edible. Methods/Materials Eleven pairs of candy and non-edibles were packaged in a bubble pack. They were assorted randomly and each subject of the pre-k class, 7th grade class, teachers, and health professionals were tested to see if they could pick out the candy in each pair. I averaged each group's correct percentage of the overall test. Results The female health professional group did the best, followed by the female teachers, male health professionals, male 7th Graders, male teachers, and female 7th Graders. The female Pre-K, and the male Pre-K were in last, the females 1% better than the males, showing how difficult it is for young children to distinguish between candies and non-edibles. The results revealed that Gummy Bear Question (#3) was the most missed question, and labeled medication (Tylenol, Sudafed) is no less dangerous than a blank medication for young children. Conclusions/Discussion I concluded that age, occupation, and gender does matter. The total adults (91%) had the higher percentage of accuracy, followed by the 7th Graders (80%), then the Pre-k (60%). It appeared labeling did not protect the young children at all, because some of them thought the labeled tablets were candy. Everyone made the most mistakes on the gummy bear question because they are the most similar. The health professionals (93%) did better than the teachers (89%). This is because health professionals dispense medications all the time. Referring to gender, the adult women were more accurate than the men. Perhaps it is because women dispense more medicine to their children. So in conclusion, age matters as well as one#s profession and the women did better than the men.

Competition history

• CSEF 2008 Behavioral & Social Sciences · Entry J0307

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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