Question

Consider a study in which a researcher has data on the presence of a gun law and the firearm homicide rate for all 50 states. The researcher runs a regression where they find the association between the presence of the gun law (X) and the firearm related homicide rate (Y). They present these results in the following table, which includes the columns for the regression slope coefficient (b), standard error, sig. value and the 95% confidence interval lower and upper bounds, similar to the way they would appear in SPSS results.

HOWEVER, they have left out some information - it is missing the b, the se, the t and the sig (or p-value),oh my! Take heart, you are equipped to use this table despite the missing information.

* All the table shows is the 95% CI lower bound is -8 whilst the 95% CI upper bound is -2. *

Based on the given information, does the law have a statistically significant relationship to firearms-related homicide rate?

Why or why not? How does the confidence interval information help us to draw the conclusion about significance?

Answer 1

Yes the lord does have a statistical significant relationship to firearms related homicide rate.
We can draw this conclusion from the confidence interval because the confidence interval is from - 8 to - 2 this means that zero is not included in the interval. But if we had an interval which included zero then it could be possible that the slope parameter is zero and then we would have no relationship between the given variables. But since the interval doesn't contain zero we can say that there is a statistical relationship between the given variables