Question

The Psychology department is gradually changing its curriculum by increasing the number of online course offerings. To evaluate the effectiveness of this change, a random sample of n = 36 students who registered for Introductory Psychology is placed in the online version of the course. At the end of the semester, all students take the same final exam. The average score for the sample is M = 76. For the general population of students taking the traditional lecture class, the final exam scores form a normal distribution with a mean of μ = 71.

a. If the final exam scores for the population have a standard deviation of σ = 12, does the sample provide enough evidence to conclude that the new online course is significantly different from the traditional class? Use a two-tailed test with α = .05.

b. If the population standard deviation is σ = 18, is the sample sufficient to demonstrate a significant difference? Again, use a two-tailed test with α = .05?

Answer 1

To determine if there is a significant difference in the mean final exam scores between the online and traditional classes, we can conduct a two-sample t-test.

Step-by-step explanation:

To determine if there is a significant difference in the mean final exam scores between the online and traditional classes, we can conduct a two-sample t-test.

a. This is a test of two means since we are comparing the mean scores of two different classes.

b. The population standard deviations are unknown.

c. We use the t-distribution to perform the test.

d. The random variable is the difference between the sample mean and the population mean.

To calculate the t-test statistic and determine if there is enough evidence to conclude that the new online course is significantly different from the traditional class, we need the sample mean, the population mean, the sample standard deviation, and the sample size.