9. Hypothesis Testing for One Sample

In Exercises 13–18, test the claim about the population mean μ at the level of significance α. Assume the population is normally distributed.

Claim: μ=4915; α=0.01. Sample statistics: x_bar=5017, s=5613, n=51

A hat company claims that the mean hat size for a male is at least 7.25. A random sample of 12 hat sizes has a mean of 7.15. At α=0.01, can you reject the company’s claim? Assume the population is normally distributed and the population standard deviation is 0.27.

Hypothesis Testing Using Rejection Region(s) In Exercises 39–44, (a) identify the claim and state H0 and Ha, (b) find the critical value(s) and identify the rejection region(s), (c) find the standardized test statistic z, (d) decide whether to reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis, and (e) interpret the decision in the context of the original claim.

[APPLET] Fluorescent Lamps A compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) bulb manufacturer guarantees that the mean life of a CFL bulb is at least 10,000 hours. You want to test this guarantee. To do so, you record the lives of a random sample of 32 CFL bulbs. The results (in hours) are listed. Assume the population standard deviation is 1850 hours. At alpha=0.11, do you have enough evidence to reject the manufacturer’s claim?

Designing a Study Stock fund managers are investment professionals who decide which stocks should be part of a portfolio. In an article in the Wall Street Journal (“Not a Stock-Picker’s Market,” WSJ, January 25, 2014), the performance of stock fund managers was considered based on dispersion in the market. In the stock market, risk is measured by the standard deviation rate of return of stock (dispersion). When dispersion is low, then the rate of return of the stocks that make up the market are not as spread out. That is, the return on Company X is close to that of Y is close to that of Z, and so on. When dispersion is high, then the rate of return of stocks is more spread out; meaning some stocks outperform others by a substantial amount. Since 1991, the dispersion of stocks has been about 7.1%. In some years, the dispersion is higher (such as 2001 when dispersion was 10%), and in some years it is lower (such as 2013 when dispersion was 5%). So, in 2001, stock fund managers would argue, one needed to have more investment advice in order to identify the stock market winners, whereas in 2013, since dispersion was low, virtually all stocks ended up with returns near the mean, so investment advice was not as valuable.

e. Suppose this study was conducted and the data yielded a P-value of 0.083. Explain what this result suggests.

Hypothesis Test for Lightning Deaths Refer to the sample data given in Cumulative Review Exercise 1 and consider those data to be a random sample of annual lightning deaths from recent years. Use those data with a 0.01 significance level to test the claim that the mean number of annual lightning deaths is less than the mean of 72.6 deaths from the 1980s. If the mean is now lower than in the past, identify one of the several factors that could explain the decline.

SAT Verbal ScoresDo students who learned English and another language simultaneously score worse on the SAT Critical Reading exam than the general population of test takers? The mean score among all test takers on the SAT Critical Reading exam is 501. A random sample of 100 test takers who learned English and another language simultaneously had a mean SAT Critical Reading score of 485 with a standard deviation of 116. Do these results suggest that students who learn English as well as another language simultaneously score worse on the SAT Critical Reading exam?

b. Verify that the requirements to perform the test using the t-distribution are satisfied.

Testing Hypotheses

In Exercises 13–24, assume that a simple random sample has been selected and test the given claim. Unless specified by your instructor, use either the P-value method or the critical value method for testing hypotheses. Identify the null and alternative hypotheses, test statistic, P-value (or range of P-values), or critical value(s), and state the final conclusion that addresses the original claim.

Diastolic Blood Pressure Diastolic blood pressure levels of 60 mm Hg or lower are considered to be too low. For the 300 diastolic blood pressure levels listed in Data Set 1 “Body Data” from Appendix B, the mean is 70.75333 mm Hg and the standard deviation is 11.61618 mm Hg. Use a 0.01 significance level to test the claim that the sample is from a population with a mean greater than 60 mm Hg.

Explain the difference between statistical significance and practical significance.

Platelet-Rich Plasma In a prospective cohort study, 20 patients with alopecia (hair loss) had platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injected in their scalps. After three months, the mean difference in hair density (after - before) was 170.70 hairs per square centimeter with a standard deviation of 37.81hairs/cm2. Source: Gkini MA, Kouskoukis AE, Tripsianis G, Rigopoulos D, Kouskoukis K., “Study of Platelet-Rich Plasma Injections in the Treatment of Androgenetic Alopecia through a One-Year Period”. J Cutan Aesthet Surg, 2014; 7:213–219. 

c. State the null and alternative hypotheses to determine if hair density increased. 

A university claims that the average SAT math score of its incoming freshmen is 600. A skeptical education researcher believes this might not be accurate. The researcher collects a random sample of 40 students and finds a sample mean SAT math score of 622. The population standard deviation is known to be 70. Using a significance level of $\alpha$ = 0.05, test the researcher’s claim.

Deciding on a Distribution In Exercises 31 and 32, decide whether you should use the standard normal sampling distribution or a t-sampling distribution to perform the hypothesis test. Justify your decision. Then use the distribution to test the claim. Write a short paragraph about the results of the test and what you can conclude about the claim.

Tuition and Fees An education publication claims that the mean in-state tuition and fees at public four-year institutions by state is more than \$10,500 per year. A random sample of 30 states has a mean in-state tuition and fees at public four-year institutions of \$10,931 per year. Assume the population standard deviation is \$2380. At α=0.01, test the publication’s claim.

In Exercises 7–10, (d) explain how you should interpret a decision that rejects the null hypothesis.

An energy bar maker claims that the mean number of grams of carbohydrates in one bar is less than 25.

Large Sample and a Small Difference It has been said that with really large samples, even very small differences between the sample mean and the claimed population mean can appear to be significant, but in reality they are not significant. Test this statement using the claim that the mean IQ score of adults is 100, given the following sample data: n = 1,000,000, x_bar = 100.05, s = 15 . Based on this sample, is the difference between x_bar = 100.05 and the claimed mean of 100 statistically significant? Does that difference have practical significance?

To test H0: μ = 100 versus H1: μ ≠ 100, a simple random sample of size n = 23 is obtained from a population that is known to be normally distributed.

d. Will the researcher reject the null hypothesis? Why?