Question

A private and a public university are located in the same city. For the private university, 1046 alumni were surveyed and 643 said that they attended at least one class reunion. For the public university, 804 out of 1315 sampled alumni claimed they have attended at least one class reunion. Is the difference in the sample proportions statistically significant

Answer 1

To find if the difference is statistically significant, we'll find the p-value and compare it to the significance level. If it's smaller, then it's significant.

• Because the problem didn't state a specific significance level, I'm going to use the most common one p = 0.05.

On a graphing calculator, I conducted a 2-Proportion Z-test. It resulted in zTest_2Prop 643,1046,804,1315,0: stat.results and the p-value is shown as around 0.869485.

• Set p₁ ≠ p₂ as we're trying to show that the two proportions are far in value, not whether one is greater/lesser than another.

Since 0.869 > 0.05, the difference in the sample proportions is not statistically significant.