Hypothesis Testing in

Statistics
§Question
A professor wants to know if her introductory
statistics class has a good grasp of basic math.
Six students are chosen at random form the call
an given a math proficiency test. The professor
wants the class to be able to score above 70 on
the test. The six students get the following
scores:
62, 92, 75, 68, 83, 95.
Can the professor have 90% confidence that the
mean score for the class on the test would be
above 70.
§Solution Steps
read the question a number of time and
make sure you understand it very well and
note the following:
§Variance is not given
§Sample size is only six
§The mean score that need to be tested is
70
§Quiz: What test do we need to use here?
Step 1: Set up the null
hypothesis and the
alternate hypothesis
§H0: μ0 > =100
Ha: μ0 < 100
if the null hypothesis requires that mean
to be greater than or equal to 70, then
for the alternate hypothesis, the mean
should be less than 70.
Step 2: Determine what
type of test to use

§From the question, the sample size is very

small, just 6 and the variance is not given. In
this case we are going to use t-Test.(one-
sample t-test)
 Step 3: Calculate the mean
of the sample
§You can calculate the variance of the sample
using the formula r below. Same as formula for
average

§= (62 + 92 + 75 + 68 + 83 + 95) / 6 = 79.167

So we have a mean,
§ x̄n = 79.147
 Step 4: Calculate the
variance of the sample
§
Calculate the variance of the sample using the formula
below

§ This would give us a value of 173.38 (This is actually the

variance
Taking the square root, would given us the standard
deviation as 13.167
 Step 5: Calculate the
tested statistics t
§
The formula for the t-test is given
below

§This would give us

§t = 1.705
Step 6: Check value of t in
the table
§Note the following
The question specifies 90% confidence.
Degrees of freedom is given as
n – 1 = 6 -1 = 5
§From the statistical tables, the critical
value if t is given as 2.1328
 Step 7: Draw a conclusion
§
Since the calculated value of t is less than the
critical value of t, in this case, we accept the
null hypothesis. So the professor can be
confident that the mean score of he class can
be 70.
§H0: μ0 >= 100
Ha: μ0 <100
if the null hypothesis requires that mean to be
greater than or equal to 70, then for the
alternate hypothesis, the mean should be less
than 70.