Numbers 1.4

When doing research and analyzing descriptive statistics one of the most important questions to ask is "Is it statistically significant?"  How do you figure that out?  Using previous data on 8th grade reading test scores I will show you.

Null Hypothesis 1: There is no statistically significant difference between Black and White test averages.

Alternative Hypothesis 1: There is a difference in the 8th grade reading performance of Black and White students.

I made this hypothesis because the average score for white students was 274 while the average score for black students was 256.  After doing the t-test I got a p-value of  0.0 which is less than .05 which means we can reject the null hypothesis. 

Null Hypothesis 2: There is no statistically significant difference between White and Hispanic test averages.

Alternative Hypothesis 2: There is a difference in the 8th grade reading performance of White and Hispanic students.

I made this hypothesis because the average score for white students is 274 and the average score for Hispanic students was 249.  After doing the t-test I got a p-value of 0.0 which is more than .05 which means we can reject the null hypothesis.

Null Hypothesis 3: There is no statistically significant difference between Black and Hispanic test averages.

Alternative Hypothesis 3: There is a difference in the 8th grade reading performance of Black and Hispanic students.

I made this hypothesis because the average score for black students was 256, and the average score for Hispanic students was 249.  After doing the t-test I got a p-value of 0.0 which is more than .05 which means we can reject the null hypothesis.

So, in all three cases we could reject the null hypothesis which means that ethnicity does play a statistically significant role in how students score on reading tests.

I found this assignment particularly difficult and I think I ultimately ended doing it like 3 times...;-/.  I have Excel on my computer, however could not find the data analysis button.  When I put the formula in manually I got the p-value of 0.  But I wanted to double check myself (like any good researcher) and so I used the website Dr. Pierce provided for people who don't have Excel, and I got completely different p-values like 4.2, 8.4, and 4.1.  So naturally I was confused.  Finally I uploaded it to google sheets and performed the t-test again and got p-values of 0.0.  So I went with the answers I repeated as the correct answers (I hope!).