STA1000F 2024

Week 10 Assignment

Due Date: Friday 26th April 2024 by 2pm

This assignment must be submitted online before the due date. (You will find the quiz for this under
Tests & Quizzes on Vula). Ensure that you enter all real numbers correct to THREE decimal places,
unless otherwise stated. Integer answers should be entered with NO decimal places.

Data for the first and third question scenarios can be found in the worksheets
‘Customer_Satisfaction’ and ‘Transport’, respectively, in the Excel spreadsheet Assignment
10 Data.xlsx.

You should use Excel to calculate p-values and critical values (i.e. using the formula T.DIST
or T.DIST.2T and T.INV or T.INV.2T).

Answer Questions 1 to 5 using Excel and the data in the worksheet: Customer_Satisfaction.

A bank conducted a study to examine the difference in customer satisfaction between older
and younger clients to identify if they should conduct client interactions differently depending
on age. Eight older clients (over the age of 70) and nine younger clients (between the ages of
20 and 30) were asked to give customer satisfaction scores. Scores can range from 0 to 10
with high scores indicative of high satisfaction and low scores indicative of low satisfaction. A
hypothesis test was conducted to determine if there is a difference in customer satisfaction
between the two age groups. You may assume equal population variances for the two groups
and Normality of customer satisfaction scores.

1. What is the pooled sample variance?

2. What is the absolute value of the test statistic?
3. The alternative hypothesis for the test is that customer satisfaction of older clients
is (higher than/lower than/different from) that of younger clients.
4. What is the p-value of the test statistic?
5. What is the decision and conclusion of the test (at the 5% level)?

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VroomAuto manufactures car brake pads. Brake pads must meet the specification of being at
least 13mm thick to ensure safe braking. An inspector comes to VroomAuto to check their
product is meeting specifications. A random sample of 36 brake pads are selected and the

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mean thickness of the brake pads is found to be 12.75mm with a standard deviation of
0.6mm. Perform an appropriate hypothesis test to see if the brake pads are up to standard.
You may assume Normality of the data.

6. The null hypothesis for the test is that the mean thickness of the brake pads is (the
same as/different from/greater than) the specification of 13mm.
7. The alternative hypothesis for the test is that the mean thickness of the brake pads
is (greater/less) than the specified 13mm.
8. The test statistic has ____ degrees of freedom.
9. What is the value of the test statistic?
10. What is the critical value of the test if it is conducted at a 1% level?
11. The decision of the test is to _____ (reject/not reject) H0 and conclude that the
mean thickness is _____the 13mm specification.

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Answer Questions 12 to 18 using Excel and the data in the worksheet: Transport.

Ayanda is a student who travels from Claremont to UCT every day for 8am lectures. She is
considering buying a bicycle after a friend has told her it will help her miss the traffic she
usually sits in when taking the UCT shuttle. Before buying a bicycle she wants to make sure
the investment will be worth it in terms of time saved. Ayanda will only purchase a bicycle if
it will cut down her travel time by more than 10 minutes. She borrows a friends bicycle and
records the time it takes her to get to campus across a random sample of days, using the
bicycle some days and her usual short walk and UCT shuttle on other days. Perform an
appropriate test to give her advice on whether she should invest in a bicycle.

Use the Data Analysis option in Excel (Under the Data menu tab) to perform a t-test at 5%
significance level on the two samples, assuming that the two populations from which the
samples are drawn have equal variances and that the data are Normally distributed. If you
don’t see the ‘Data Analysis option’ then, under the Data tab, select ‘Analysis Tools’ and tick
the ‘Analysis ToolPak’ option and then select OK.

12. What is the pooled sample standard deviation?

13. How many degrees of freedom does the test statistic have?
14. What is the value of the test statistic?
15. What is the p-value of the test statistic?
16. What decision should be made from the test?
17. Would the decision have been different if we had NOT assumed that the population
variances of the two samples were equal (to answer this question, perform the t-
test assuming unequal variances in Excel)? Use the p-value to answer the question.

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18. Report the p-value used to answer Q17.