In: Statistics and Probability
A researcher is interested in the average hours worked in Orange County. She takes a sample of OC residents (n=81) and finds that the sample mean is 42 hours. The standard deviation is 27.
a. What is the confidence interval around the mean for the 95% confidence level?
b. If the researcher was asked about whether OC residents are on average full-time workers (over 40 hours a week), would this confidence interval help answer that question? Why or why not?
c. A critic claims that because average hours aren't normally distributed, so we can't infer from our sample to the population. Is the critic correct? Why or why not?
a) 95% Confidence interval:
b) Given the statement is the researcher was asked about whether OC residents are on average full-time workers (over 40 hours a week)
This statement is valid since 40 hours is in the above 95% confidence interval.
c) Since the hours are normally distributed the confidence interval of population mean is calculated
from normal distribution if population SD is known or
from t distribution if population SD is unknown.
But if hours are not normally distributed we can not use normal distribution or t distribution for construct the confidence interval then we have to use non parametric confidence interval. In this situation, The claim is may or may not be valid