In: Statistics and Probability
Suppose a corrections officer in Washington wants to test the claim that the average time convicted armed burglars with no prior convictions spend time in jail is 104.7 months with a standard deviation of 21 months. He would like to determine if the true mean jail time is actually different from what is claimed, so he collects data for a random sample of 47 such cases from court files and determines that the mean jail time is 110.4 months. The officer conducts a one sample z-test for one mean.
(a) Express the null and alternative hypotheses symbolically. (Be sure to use appropriate symbols).
(b) Determine a 90% confidence interval for the true mean jail time.
(c) Based on the confidence interval, what decision should the police officer make about his hypothesis test? Explain your answer.
a)
H0: = 104.7
Ha: 104.7
b)
90% confidence interval for is
- Z/2 * / sqrt(n) < < + Z/2 * / sqrt(n)
110.4 - 1.645 * 21 / sqrt(47) < < 110.4 + 1.645 * 21 / sqrt(47)
105.36 < < 115.44
90% CI is ( 105.36 , 115.44 )
c)
Since confidence interval does not contain mean 104.7 , we have sufficient evidence to suppot
the claim that the true mean jail time is actually different from 104.7 months.