Question

the group of 39 bullies scored an average of 51.6 with a sample standard deviation of 9 on the anxiety scale. the group of 31 bystanders scored an average of 45.2 with a sample standard deviation of 12 on the same scale. you do not have any presupposed assumptions about whether bullies or bystanders will be more anxious, so you formulate the null and alternative hypotheses as:

Answer 1

Null Hypothesis: There is no significant difference in the average anxiety scores between bullies and bystanders.

Alternative Hypothesis: There is a significant difference in the average anxiety scores between bullies and bystanders.

In hypothesis testing, you typically formulate a null hypothesis (H0) and an alternative hypothesis (H1 or Ha). The null hypothesis represents a statement of no effect or no difference, while the alternative hypothesis represents the opposite.

This is a two-tailed hypothesis test because you are interested in whether the average anxiety scores are different, without specifying the direction of the difference. The test will help determine if there is enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis in favor of the alternative hypothesis based on the sample data.