A school found that the number of students buying lunch from the cafeteria had declined. The school wants to revise its current lunch menu.
They asked parents and students to suggest new meals.
Which method of selecting new meals will produce an unbiased result?
• A. All of the suggested meals will be reviewed by the teachers and their favorites will be used.
B. All of the suggested meals will be shuffled into one stack and every 10th suggestion will be used.
• C. A box will be placed at the school entrance for parents to drop off their meal suggestions. Every 10th suggestion will be used.
• D. A box will be put in the cafeteria for students to drop off their meal suggestions. The first 20 will be used.
The method that will produce an unbiased result is option B. All of the suggested meals will be shuffled into one stack and every 10th suggestion will be used. This method ensures that each suggestion has an equal chance of being selected, without any bias towards specific individuals or groups.
The method that will produce an unbiased result is option C. A box will be placed at the school entrance for parents to drop off their meal suggestions, and every 10th suggestion will be used. This method ensures that every suggestion has an equal chance of being selected for the new meals, without any bias towards specific teachers or the order in which the suggestions are received.
In order to produce an unbiased result when selecting new meals, it is important to consider a method that avoids potential biases or preferences from those involved in the selection process.
Option A involves having teachers review the suggested meals and selecting their favorites. This approach may introduce bias as the selection will be based on the preferences of the teachers, which might not reflect the preferences of the wider school community.
Option B suggests shuffling all the suggested meals into one stack and selecting every 10th suggestion. While this method may seem random, it can still lead to bias if, for example, certain types of meals are more likely to be selected due to their positioning in the stack.
Option C involves placing a box at the school entrance for parents to drop off their meal suggestions, with every 10th suggestion being used. This method is more likely to produce an unbiased result compared to the previous options, as it allows all parents to participate and randomly selects suggestions.
Option D proposes placing a box in the cafeteria for students to drop off their meal suggestions, with the first 20 being used. While this method would involve student input, it still has the potential for bias as it only considers the first 20 suggestions, potentially excluding ideas from other students.
Based on the given options, option C - placing a box at the school entrance for parents to drop off their meal suggestions and randomly selecting every 10th suggestion - is the method that would produce the most unbiased result.