Question

Conscientiousness is a trait which implies discipline, dependability, and a heightened sense of personal responsibility. A school administrator wants to compare conscientiousness between high school and university students. He recruits 10 university and 15 high school students and measures their conscientiousness scores on a scale from 1 to 20 where 20 indicates greater conscientiousness. The university students have a mean conscientiousness score of 10 with a standard deviation of 1.5. The high school students have a mean conscientiousness score of 8 with a standard deviation of 1.7. In addition, standard error = .646. Is there a difference in conscientiousness between high school and university students?

a. Identify the IV, IV levels, and DV.

IV:
Levels:
DV:

b. Is this experiment a paired-samples or independent-samples design?

c. State null and alternative hypotheses in words.

H₀:
H₁:

d. Conduct a statistical test of the hypothesis

t( ) =

e. Decide whether to reject or retain the null hypothesis.

f. Interpret your results.

Answer 1

a:

Independent variables: high school and university students

Dependent variables: conscientiousness scores

Level of measurement : Interval

b:

independent-samples design

c:

H0:  There is no difference in conscientiousness between high school and university students.

Ha:  There is a difference in conscientiousness between high school and university students.

(d)

t( 21) =3.095

(e)

reject the null hypothesis

(f)

There is evidence to conclude that there is a difference in conscientiousness between high school and university students.