A marketing director for a beverage company conducted a study to investigate people’s soda preferences in two regions of the country. The director selected a random sample of 100 people from the east coast and a random sample of 100 people from the west coast to survey. The responses are summarized in the following table. East CoastWest Coast
Regular soda 44 37
Diet soda 39 42
No preference. 17 21
Total 100 100
Do the data provide convincing statistical evidence, at the level of α=0.05 , that the preferences are different between the two regions of the country? Complete the appropriate inference procedure to support your answer.