Question

Background: Jan is a graduating senior interested in finding a job that they enjoy with good pay. Jan is graduating with a law degree and looking at two different career paths: becoming a lawyer for a private criminal defense firm or working as a public defender for the state. Jan has found five salary packages for entry-level positions in each pathway. Their findings are shown below. HINT: These values should be treated as continuous/interval ratio.

Private Firms Salary ($ in thousands) State Jobs Salary ($ in thousands)

Job #1 35 Job #1 42

Job #2 32 Job #2 41

Job #3 78 Job #3 48

Job #4 92 Job #4 51

Job #5 29 Job #5 45

Number each of your responses, show your work for all computations, and underline your final answers. Describe the central tendency in the sample of PRIVATE law firm salaries (6 points). Calculate and report the mean, median, and mode (modal) salary for PRIVATE jobs. If a particular measure of central tendency cannot be calculated, briefly indicate why. In one sentence, indicate which measure of central tendency is the best fit for describing these salaries and why. In another sentence, provide an interpretation of the value you computed. Describe the variability in the sample of PRIVATE law firm salaries (6 points). Calculate and report both the range and the standard deviation of PRIVATE salaries. If a particular measure of variability cannot be calculated, briefly indicate why. In one sentence, indicate which measure of variability is the best fit for describing these salaries and why. In another sentence, provide an interpretation of the value you computed. Describe the central tendency in the sample of STATE defense attorney salaries (6 points). Calculate and report the mean, median, and mode (modal) salary for STATE jobs. If a particular measure of central tendency cannot be calculated, briefly indicate why. In one sentence, indicate which measure of central tendency is the best fit for describing these salaries and why. In another sentence, provide an interpretation of the value you computed. Describe the variability in the sample of STATE defense attorney salaries (6 points). Calculate and report both the range and the standard deviation of STATE salaries If a particular measure of variability cannot be calculated, briefly indicate why. In one sentence, indicate which measure of variability is the best fit for describing these salaries and why. In another sentence, provide an interpretation of the value you computed. In 5-6 sentences, give your recommendation to Jan (6 points). Given the information you have calculated about the two different career paths, which seems like the best choice for Jan? Support your answer using STATISTICAL INFORMATION (e.g., sample size, the raw data, measures of central tendency, possible skew, and measures of variability you calculated). You should also include a sentence or two using social information to support your recommendation.

Answer 1

	Private Firms	State Jobs
	35	42
	32	41
	78	48
	92	51
	29	45
mean	53.2	45.4
median	35	45
model	#N/A	#N/A
range	63	10
standard deviation	29.52	4.16

Formulas in Excel

	Private Firms	State Jobs
	35	42
	32	41
	78	48
	92	51
	29	45
mean	=AVERAGE(B2:B6)	=AVERAGE(C2:C6)
median	=MEDIAN(B2:B6)	=MEDIAN(C2:C6)
model	=MODE(B2:B6)	=MODE(C2:C6)
range	=MAX(B2:B6)-MIN(B2:B6)	=MAX(C2:C6)-MIN(C2:C6)
standard deviation	=STDEV(B2:B6)	=STDEV(C2:C6)

NA in mode means there is no unique mode

Mean -Measure of central tendency is the best fit for describing these salaries because the mean is usually the best measure of central tendency to use when your data distribution is continuous and symmetrical.

Standard Dev measure of variability is the best fit for describing these salaries. The standard deviation is an especially useful measure of variability when the distribution is normal or approximately normal.