Question

A commonly cited standard for one-way length (duration) of school bus rides for elementary school children is 30 minutes. A local government office in a rural area conducts a study to determine if elementary schoolers in their district have a longer average one-way commute time. If they determine that the average commute time of students in their district is significantly higher than the commonly cited standard they will invest in increasing the number of school buses to help shorten commute time. What would a Type 2 error mean in this context?

Answer 1

Question Options:

A. The local government decides that the average commute time is 30 minutes.

B. The local government decides that the data provide convincing evidence of an average commute time higher than 30 minutes, when the true average commute time is in fact 30 minutes.

C. The local government decides that the data do not provide convincing evidence of an average commute time higher than 30 minutes, when the true average commute time is in fact higher than 30 minutes.

D. The local government decides that the data do not provide convincing evidence of an average commute time different than 30 minutes, when the true average commute time is in fact 30 minutes.

Answer: A type 2 error in this context will mean that The local government decides that the data do not provide convincing evidence of an average commute time higher than 30 minutes, when the true average commute time is in fact higher than 30 minutes.

A type 2 error in statistics is defined as a situation where a false null hypothesis is not rejected.

In this question, a false null hypothesis would that the average commute time for the elementary school in the district is higher than the average 30 minutes.