Question

A high school physics teacher wondered if his students in the senior class this year will be more likely to go into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) majors than Social Science and Liberal Arts majors. He asked each of his 65 students about their first choice for major on their college applications and conducted a Chi-square test for goodness of fit with an alpha level of .05 to see if the number of students choosing each category differs significantly.

35 – STEM

20 – Social Sciences

10 – Liberal Arts

a. What is the variable in this test? What type of variable is it (nominal, ordinal, or continuous)? (1 point total: .5 for each question)

b. State the null and alternative hypotheses in words (1 point total: .5 for each hypothesis)

c. Calculate X² statistic (2 points total: 1 for final answer, 1 for the process of calculating it)

d. Calculate the degree of freedom and then identify the critical value (1 point total: .5 for df, .5 for critical value)

e. Compare the X² statistic with the critical value, then report the hypothesis test result, using “reject” or “fail to reject” the null hypothesis in the answer (1 point total, .5 for each answer)

f. Explain the conclusion in a sentence or two, to answer the research question. (1 point)

Answer 1