2. A teacher wants to investigate whether there is a difference between male and female students in the amount of time they spend studying for statistics. The table below shows the amount of time students spend studying statistics each week. The amounts of time spent studying are normally distributed.

Question

2.	A teacher wants to investigate whether there is a difference between male and female students in the amount of time they spend studying for statistics. The table below shows the amount of time students spend studying statistics each week. The amounts of time spent studying are normally distributed.  
Male	Female
27	25
25	29
19	18
10	23
16	20
17	15
15	19
a.	What statistical test should be used to analyze the data?

b.	Is this a one- or two tailed test?

c.	Identify H0 and Ha for this study.

d.	Conduct the appropriate analysis. Should H0 be rejected?

PsyDAG · Answer

Ho: mean1 = mean2
Ha: mean1 ≠ mean2

Does that indicate one-tailed or two?

Find the mean first = sum of scores/number of scores

Subtract each of the scores from the mean and square each difference. Find the sum of these squares. Divide that by the number of scores to get variance.

Standard deviation = square root of variance

Z = (mean1 - mean2)/standard error (SE) of difference between means

SEdiff = √(SEmean1^2 + SEmean2^2)

SEm = SD/√(n-1)

If only one SD is provided, you can use just that to determine SEdiff.

Find table in the back of your statistics text labeled something like "areas under normal distribution" to find the proportion related to your Z score.