Chapter 19.

Inference about a Population Proportion

Topics covered in this chapter: Hypothesis Test about One Proportion

Hypothesis Test about One Proportion

Example 19.7: Are Boys More Likely? The Problem: This study researches the possibility that firstborn children are more likely to be boys than girls. A sample of 25,468 firstborn children is used to answer the question using a hypothesis test about one proportion. So, the hypothesis is that the proportion of firstborn boys is larger than 0.5. 1. Create the data. a. Click on Variable View. b. Enter the variables as p, po, and n. c. Increase the number of decimals for p to 4.

d. Click on Data View. e. For p, po, and n in line 1, type in 0.5172, 0.5, and 25468. 2. Conduct the one-sample significance test. a. Click on Transform.

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b. Click on Compute Variable. c. Under Target Variable, type z. The numeric expression for z can be found on page 514 and is shown below. Make sure the equation is written correctly, and then hit OK.

The z value of approximately 5.49 is shown in the Data View screen. For a test of significance, the corresponding p-value must be found. 3. Find the p-value. a. Click on Transform. b. Click on Compute Variable. c. Under Target Variable, type in probability. d. In the Numeric expression box, type in 1 . e. Under Function Group, click on CDF & Noncentral CDF. f. Double-click on Cdfnorm from the Functions and Special Variables list. g. Choose z as the variable. h. Click on OK.

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We see that the probability is very close to zero. With such a small probability, the null hypothesis is rejected in favor of the alternative hypothesis. This study shows very strong evidence that more than half of newborn children are boys.

Chapter 19 Exercises
19.5 19.7 19.9 19.11 Canadian attitudes towards guns. Whelks and mussels. Cocaine traces in Spanish currency, continued. Can you taste PTC?

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19.13 19.25 19.29 19.31 19.37 19.39 19.41

Vote for the best face? Do smokers know that smoking is bad for them? I dont like my life. Detecting genetically modified soybeans. Shrubs that survive fires. Opinions about evolution. Opinions about evolution, continued.

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Chapter 19 SPSS Solutions

**NOTE: SPSS does not do inference based on Z distributions, nor does it perform inference on variables that are already summarized. If you really want to use SPSS for these problems, follow the instructions below (youll be basically using Transform, Compute Variable as a calculator) or use another technology (such as a graphing calculator or another statistics program like Minitab or Crunchit.)

19.5 The biggest weakness might be that people refuse to cooperate. Another is that not everyone has a telephone (landline). Time-of-day could also be a factor when were the = 1288 /1505 = 0.856. To calls made? To create the confidence interval, we have p refresh our memories, we use IDF.Normal to find z* for the interval as shown below; this is z* = 1.96.

z* Now, find the endpoints of the interval as p

(1 p p . Click the Variable View tab n and increase the number of decimal places that will display, if desired (we increased them to four places in each of Low and High).

Based on this survey, were 95% confident that between 83.8% and 87.4% of Canadians support registration of all firearms.

19.7 Since only 9 of 98 whelks drilled into mussels, we cant use a large-sample confidence interval. Add 2 to the successes (that makes 11) and 4 to the number of trials (that makes 102) and compute the interval as p z * p (1 p ) / n + 4. We have
p = 11/102 = 0.108. The interval becomes 0.108 1.645 .108*(1 .108) /102 , or 0.108 0.051. With 90% confidence, the proportion of Oregon whelks that will spontaneously drill in to mussels is between 5.7% and 15.9%, based on this sample.

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19.9

= 20 / 20 = 1.0. Since the confidence interval is The sample proportion is p

z* p (1 p ) / n and (1 p ) is 0, the interval is from 1 to 1 (not very interesting, nor p can we be sure every bill is tainted with cocaine). To form the plus four interval add 4 to the trials (this becomes 24) and 2 to the successes (this becomes 22). The plus four estimate is p = 91.7%, and based on this, were 95% confident that between 80.6% and 100% (it cant be more than 100%) of Spanish currency is tainted with cocaine.

19.11 To find the sample size needed, well use the formula
z* n p * (1 p*) ME where p* is the guessed p. We find z* for 90% confidence using invNorm with half the leftover area to be 1.645. Well need a sample of at least 318 Americans who have at least one Italian grandparent.
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19.13 We let p be the proportion of candidates with the more competent face who win. If the face doesnt influence voters, we should have p = 0.5; this becomes the null hypothesis. We seek evidence in support of an alternative that the more competent face should win more elections, in other words, we have H a : p > 0.5. From the data given, p0 p = 22 / 32 = 0.6875. Our test statistic is z = . We then use we have p p0 (1 po ) n CDF.Normal to find the P-value of this test; since this is a one-sided test, the P-value is the area to the right of our test statistic.

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With z = 2.12 and P-value 0.0170, we reject the null at the 5% level and conclude that the more competent face tends to win elections.

19.25 As with any telephone poll, the biggest weakness might be that people refuse to cooperate; in this case, they may lie about being smokers. Another is that not everyone has a telephone (landline). Time-of-day could also be a factor when were the calls = 848 /1010 = 0.8396; we use this in made? The estimate from the sample is p computing the low and high ends of the interval.

Based on the Harris survey, between 81.7% and 86.2% of smokers believe smoking will probably shorten their lives, with 95% confidence.

19.29 As with any telephone poll, the biggest weakness might be that people refuse to cooperate. Another is that not everyone has a telephone (landline). Time-of-day could also be a factor when were the calls made? The large sample estimate is = 56 /1128 = 0.0496. p

The large sample interval has between 3.9% and 6.0% of American women dissatisfied with their life. To find the plus four interval, we have p = 58 /1132 = 0.0512. Redo the computations using this new estimate and be sure to use the updated value of n.

The plus four interval is from 4.0% to 6.2% - a shift slightly higher toward the center 50%.

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19.31 The conditions for the large sample methods are not met there were only 23 facilities; 18 detected the GM beans but 5 did not (there are fewer failures than we need). Using 20 successes and 27 trials, we have p = 20 / 27 = 0.741. Were 90% confident that between 60.2% and 88.0% of these facilities will be able to detect genetically modified beans.

19.37 We have only 12 specimens that were torched; of these 5 resprouted. With these small numbers, we must use the plus four method to construct the confidence interval. The 5 becomes 7 and the 12 becomes 16, with p = 7 /16 = 0.4375. Were 90% confident that between 23.4% and 64.2% of Krameria cytisoides shrubs will resprout after a fire.

19.39 We can use the large sample method with the results of this survey. We have = 594 /1484 = 0.4003. Based on this survey, between 37.5% and 42.5% of American p adults believe humans developed from earlier animals.

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19.41 The upper end of our confidence interval in Exercise 19.39 was below 50%, so we have good evidence that less than half believe humans developed from lower animals. Well go ahead and compute a test statistic and P-value for this test anyway. With a test statistic of z = 7.68 there is no real need to find the P-value exactly; using the 68-9599.7 rule, we know the chance of being more than 7 standard deviations below a mean is essentially 0.