Introduction:
The purpose of this experiment is to: (a) determine if hand soap or alcohol gel is the most effective in killing Staphylococcus aureus (b) obtain the statistical difference of effectiveness in killing S. aureus between hand soap and alcohol gel. The null hypothesis is that neither hand soap nor alcohol gel is effective in killing S. aureus more than the control group which is nothing at all. The alternate hypothesis is that hand soap versus the control group will be more effective in killing S. aureus and/or alcohol gel versus the control group will be more effective in killing S. aureus. Another alternate hypothesis is that alcohol gel is more effective in killing S. aureus than the hand soap.
Materials and Methods:
The bottom of a Trypticase Soy Agar (TSA) plate is divided into three (3) pie sections along with the experimentalist initials, class day and class time. A sample of S. aureus is obtained in a closed lid sample tube. The sample tube is …show more content…
The control group had no effect on killing S. aureus, but the treatment groups did have an effect on killing S. aureus. The hand soap mean zone of clearing was 11.21mm and the alcohol mean zone of clearing was 13.21mm. The null hypothesis that neither hand soap nor alcohol gel is effective in killing S. aureus more than the control group is rejected. The alternate hypothesis that hand soap versus the control group is more effective killing S. aureus is accepted. The alternate hypothesis that alcohol gel versus the control group is more effective in killing S. aureus is accepted. The alternate hypothesis that alcohol gel is more effective than the hand soap in killing S. aureus is rejected. The data suggests hand soap is not as effective as alcohol gel; however, statistically, the data does not support that alcohol gel is a more effective treatment because the error bars