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35 votes
35 votes
Stuck on this one!!

Shelly believes the honor roll students at her school have an unfair advantage in being assigned to the math class they request. She asked 500 students at her school the following questions: 'Are you on the honor roll?" and "Did you get the math class you requested?" The results are shown in the table
below:
Honor roll Not on honor roll Total
Received math class requested 215 125 340
Did not get math class requested 80 80 160
Total 295 205 500

Help Shelly determine if all students at her school
have an equal opportunity to get into the math class
they requested. Show
your work, and explain your
process for determining the fairness of the class
assignment process.

User Johnson Fashanu
by
2.9k points

1 Answer

12 votes
12 votes

Answer:

Overall, the data suggests that honor roll students at Shelly's school have an unfair advantage in being assigned to the math class they request

Explanation:

To determine if all students at Shelly's school have an equal opportunity to get into the math class they request, we can compare the proportion of honor roll students who got the math class they requested to the proportion of non-honor roll students who got the math class they requested. This will give us an idea of whether honor roll students are more likely to get the math class they request than non-honor roll students, which would indicate that the class assignment process is unfair.

First, let's calculate the proportion of honor roll students who got the math class they requested:

215 out of 295 honor roll students got the math class they requested, so the proportion is 215/295 = 0.73

Next, let's calculate the proportion of non-honor roll students who got the math class they requested:

125 out of 205 non-honor roll students got the math class they requested, so the proportion is 125/205 = 0.61

Finally, let's compare the two proportions to see if there is a significant difference between them:

The proportion of honor roll students who got the math class they requested is 0.73, while the proportion of non-honor roll students who got the math class they requested is 0.61.

This means that honor roll students are more likely to get the math class they request than non-honor roll students, which suggests that the class assignment process is unfair.

Overall, the data suggests that honor roll students at Shelly's school have an unfair advantage in being assigned to the math class they request. To ensure fairness, the school should consider using a different method for assigning students to classes, such as a random selection process or a merit-based system that takes into account a broader range of factors.

User Chayala
by
3.5k points