Question

A professor has been teaching introductory statistics for many years and the final exam performance has been very consistent from class to class and the scores have been normally distributed. Overall, the whole data base (i.e. population) of final scores has a mean (μ) of 24 points (out of a maximum of 30 points) and a standard deviation (Ï) of 5 points. The professor would like to revise the course design to see if student performance on the final could be improved.

The new course design was implemented in the most recent academic year. There were 100 students and the average final exam score was 24.7. The professor would like to run a hypothesis test to see if this sample of students in the recent academic year performed significantly better than the past population. In other words, the hypothesis was a comparison between the population taking the course with the new design (represented by the sample of 100 students) with the population taking the course with the old design. The professor is predicting an increase of final score with the new design, so the hypotheses should be directional, and the test should be one-tailed. The significance level is set at α = .1.

Required:
a. Identify the dependent variable for this study.
b. State the null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis using both words and symbol notation

Answer 1

a) Independent variable - Design of the course

Dependent variable - Final score of the students

b) H0 - Final score >24.7

Alternate hypothesis - Final score is less than or equal to 24.7

Explanation:

a) Independent variable - Design of the course

Dependent variable - Final score of the students

b) Null Hypothesis : Performance of student taking course with the new design is better as compared to the population of student taking the course with the old design.

H0 - Final score >24.7

Alternate hypothesis - Final score is less than or equal to 24.7