What is the control group in my science experiment?

I did my experiment based off the ';Coke vs Pepsi Challenge.'; I had 20 people blindly taste Coke, Pepsi, and a generic soda and tell me which on they preferred. What would the control group be in that?


Also, we're supposed to talk about the Absolute and Relative of the experiment and i have no idea what our teacher means by that. If anyone knows and doesn't mind sharing that would be fantastic!





Thanks so much.What is the control group in my science experiment?
The control is typically when you compare something that got a treatment to something that didn't get a treatment. Like medicine versus no medicine when you look at who got better. A control answers the question ';does X make something happen?';. You try X and you try your control, which is fake X, and if the results are the same, then X has no effect, or if there is an effect, then you conclude that X makes something happen.





Your experiment is a little different--it's more comparative. You're not asking ';Does Coke make you happy';; you're asking ';which makes you happier, Coke or Pepsi?';. So since you're just comparing a response to two things, I'd say you don't really have a control. But since you probably need to answer that question for your school project, I think you should probably say that the generic soda is your control. In the future, however, you can set up your experiment from the beginning so that you can answer those questions easier (or you can just reword your question). Pick a research question that fits the standard experiment model that you're being graded on. Such as: ';Do people like brand name sodas better than generics?';. Now, generic is definitely your control! Sometimes it's just a matter of rewording your question, sometimes it's a matter of designing your experiment.





Not sure exactly what you mean by absolute and relative. Absolute usually refers to numbers that stand alone--such as height, age, temperature, or even a 1-10 scale, etc. Relative is stuff like ';better'; or ';worse';, or any comparison number, such as 20% more, or 10 feet higher, or something.