Part IV by Susan Holt Coordinating Mentor New York State Biology Mentor Network

Dr. Cutler's research was done with Athena Pheromone 10X (unscented fragrance additive for men). Jean had purchased Athena Pheromone 10:13 (unscented fragrance additive for women). A product should be properly tested to make sure that it does what it is supposed to do. Design an experiment to test Athena Pheromone 10:13 to see if gets women more romantic attention.

Questions

1. What hypothesis would you be testing?
2. What sort of people would you use as a control group?
3. What sort of people would you use as an experimental group?
4. How many people would you choose for each group?
5. What factors would you have to keep constant in your experimental and control groups, and how would you do it?
6. What procedure would you follow to make sure the pheromone is tested fairly?
7. The data collected needs to be "socially appropriate"—involve only behaviors permitted by high school rules. What data would you collect? How often would you collect data?
8. Make a data table that you would use to record data from your experiment.
9. How will you decide if the pheromone is effective or ineffective?