PSYC 60 Yixia Gu 2009535838

Saunders - Fall 2010

HW 1 - Statistics review

1. Use data from file “hw1_data1.txt”. Data show the heights (in cm) of a sample of women. (a) Compute and
report the mean, sample standard deviation, and standard error of the mean. (b) If you used four times as
many subjects, how would you expect each of these values to change?

Answer:
a) Mean= 163.8
b) Sample standard deviation= 7.71434 or 7.71 (2 d.p)
c) Standard error of the mean= SD/Sqrt of Sample Size= 2.439489 or 2.44 (2 d.p)
d)
i) Mean: There’s no general way the mean changes; it varies depending on the heights in the sample and
size of subject sample
ii) Sample standard deviation: As sample size is increased, the standard deviation is decreased
iii) Standard error of the mean: As sample size is increased, the standard error of the mean is decreased

1b: standard deviation would be approximately constant as well (-2) 2a: Mean = 21620, Median = 18000 (-4)

2. Use data from file “hw1_data2.txt”. Data show monthly income (in thousand dollars) earned by a sample of
new university graduates. (a) Compute and report the mean and the median. (b) Why are the mean and
median considerably different in this example?

Answer:
a) Mean= 21.61538 or 21.61 (2 d.p) Median= 18
b) The mean is affected by outliers in the data range (e.g. 58 and 32), whereas the median simply takes the
middle value of a data set

3. Suppose that you performed an experiment and found no significant difference between treatment and control
group. One possible explanation is that the treatment had no effect. What is an alternative possibility?

Answer:
The sample size used for both groups in the experiment is too small. If large size groups are used, even small
differences will be marked as significant.

4. Suppose you did a t-test comparing results for a treatment group and a control group, and obtained a
significance value of p = 0.03. (a) What, precisely, does the value of 0.03 represent? (b) What would you
conclude about the effectiveness of the treatment?

Answer:
a) p=0.03 indicates that the probability of the difference between the groups if the null hypothesis (there is no
difference between the groups) were true is 3%
b) The treatment is effective, as it is statistically significant that the difference between the treatment group and
control group exists, and is not due to chance.

5. The normal distribution (or Gaussian distribution) is the basis for many commonly used statistical tests.
There is an important mathematical property of the normal distribution that makes it so useful. Identify and
briefly describe.

Answer:
The central limit theorem underlies the normal distribution. This theorem poses that as the number of observation
increase of a particular event, the values become more normally distributed; provided the variable which affect it
are random and there is a number of different influences. This forms a normal, symmetrical curve with most scores
clustered at the middle and few extreme scores at both ends.