In: Statistics and Probability
An investigator theorizes that people who participate in a regular program of exercise will have levels of systolic blood pressure that are significantly different from that of people who do not participate in a regular program of exercise. To test this idea the investigator randomly assigns 40 subjects to an exercise program for 10 weeks and 40 subjects to a non-exercise comparison group. After ten weeks the mean systolic blood pressure of subjects in the exercise group is 137 and the standard deviation of blood pressure values in the exercise group is 10. After ten weeks, the mean systolic blood pressure of subjects in the non-exercise group is 127 and the standard deviation on subjects in the non-exercise group is 9.0. Does this experiment provide evidence for the investigator's theory? The obtained statistic: 2.364
a. What type of test should you use?
b. Please provide, in words, the null and alternative hypotheses.
c. Using an alpha level of .01 identify the critical value(s).
d. Using the above test statistic, alpha level and critical value(s) what is your statistical decision?
e. State your conclusion regarding the results from this test in language that a friend of yours with no knowledge of statistics could understand.