fifty two of a test panel of 175 consumers say that they would buy cereal A if it is presented on the market and 35 of another test panel of 150 consumers say that they would buy cereal B. Test the null hypothesis that the cereals on the market would be equally popular. Use a 5% significance level. Give the null and alternative

1 answer

The null hypothesis (H₀): The cereals on the market are equally popular.
The alternative hypothesis (H₁): The cereals on the market are not equally popular.

To solve this problem, we will perform a chi-square test of independence. We will create a contingency table with the observed frequencies of consumers who would buy cereal A and cereal B.

| Cereal A | Cereal B | Total
---------------------------------------------
Buy | 52 | 35 | 87
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Not Buy | 123 | 115 | 238
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Total | 175 | 150 | 325

Now, let's calculate the expected frequencies in each cell of the contingency table under the assumption that the cereals are equally popular.

Expected frequency for Cereal A and Buy = (number of Cereal A buyers * total number of buyers) / total number of consumers
Expected frequency for Cereal B and Buy = (number of Cereal B buyers * total number of buyers) / total number of consumers
Expected frequency for Cereal A and Not Buy = (number of Cereal A non-buyers * total number of non-buyers) / total number of consumers
Expected frequency for Cereal B and Not Buy = (number of Cereal B non-buyers * total number of non-buyers) / total number of consumers

Expected frequency for Cereal A and Buy = (175 * 87) / 325 ≈ 46.215
Expected frequency for Cereal B and Buy = (150 * 87) / 325 ≈ 40.200
Expected frequency for Cereal A and Not Buy = (175 * 238) / 325 ≈ 128.538
Expected frequency for Cereal B and Not Buy = (150 * 238) / 325 ≈ 110.462

Now, we can calculate the chi-square test statistic:

χ² = Σ[(Observed frequency - Expected frequency)² / Expected frequency]

χ² = [(52 - 46.215)² / 46.215] + [(35 - 40.200)² / 40.200] + [(123 - 128.538)² / 128.538] + [(115 - 110.462)² / 110.462]

χ² ≈ 0.514 + 0.643 + 0.193 + 0.201 ≈ 1.551

To determine whether the chi-square statistic is statistically significant, we need to compare it to the critical value from the chi-square distribution with (number of rows - 1) * (number of columns - 1) degrees of freedom at the given significance level (α = 0.05).

In this case, the contingency table has (2 - 1) * (2 - 1) = 1 degree of freedom.

The critical value for α = 0.05 and 1 degree of freedom is approximately 3.841.

Since the calculated chi-square statistic (1.551) is less than the critical value (3.841), we fail to reject the null hypothesis.

Therefore, we do not have enough evidence to conclude that the cereals on the market are not equally popular at a 5% significance level.