In: Statistics and Probability
7-5) A researcher intends to determine if exposure to a documentary about death penalty would impact attitudes toward capital punishment. From a large class of undergraduate students she selects a random sample of 40 students who will watch the movie [experimental group] and a random sample of 40 students [control group] who will not watch the documentary. She then measures one’s opposition toward penalty using a single-item question asking students to rank their opinions on a scale from zero [strong support for death penalty] to six [strong opposition]. The table below presents the summary results of her experiment:
N Mean Std. dev.
Experimental group 40 4.0 2
Control group 40 3.0 1.5
a. Formulate the null hypothesis
b. Formulate the alternative hypothesis
c. Using the independent-sample t test, test the null hypothesis [H0]
d. List the value of the critical t you used to test H0 [df = n1 + n2 – 2; p = .05; 2-tail test]
e. Reach a statistical conclusion using p = .05, 2-tail test, and the appropriate df
f. Interpret your results. In your opinion did the documentary had an effect or not? Explain.