Question

Educators are testing a new program designed to help children improve their reading skills. The null hypothesis of the test is that the program does not help children improve their reading skills. For the educators, the more consequential error would be that the program does not help children improve their reading skills but the test indicated that it does help.

Which of the following should the researchers do to avoid the more consequential error?

Answer 1

The researchers should use a more stringent significance level to avoid the more consequential error. A significance level is the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true. A more stringent significance level means that the researchers are less likely to reject the null hypothesis, even if the program does not help children improve their reading skills.

For example, instead of using a significance level of 0.05, the researchers could use a significance level of 0.01. This would mean that the researchers would only reject the null hypothesis if the results of the test were very unlikely to occur if the program did not help children improve their reading skills.

Using a more stringent significance level will help to reduce the risk of the more consequential error. However, it is important to note that this will also reduce the power of the test. This means that the researchers are less likely to detect a real effect of the program if it does exist.

Therefore, it is important to weigh the risks and benefits of using a more stringent significance level before making a decision.

Step-by-step explanation: