Question

1. Using Durkheim’s theory as a basis, a sociologist calculated the following suicide rates (number of suicides per 100,000 population, rounded to the nearest whole number) for 10 “high-anomie and 10 “low-anomie” metropolitan areas. Anomie (normlessness) was indicated by the presence of a large number of newcomers or transients in an area.

       High Anomie         Low Anomie

                19                         15

                17                         20

                22                         11

                18                         13

                25                         14

                29                         16

                20                         14

                18                          9

                19                         11

                23                         14        

Use a .05 alpha level to test the research hypothesis that high-anomie metropolitan areas have higher suicide rates than low-anomie areas, and answer the following questions:

1. Is this a one-tailed or two tailed test? How do you know?
2. What is the critical value of the test statistic?
3. What is the obtained value of the test statistic?
4. What decision about the null hypothesis does your test lead to?
5. What does this indicate about differences in suicide rates between high- and low-anomie areas?
6. Would your decision be different if you used an alpha level of .01? Explain.

Answer 1

Ans:

	High	Low
1	19	15
2	17	20
3	22	11
4	18	13
5	25	14
6	29	16
7	20	14
8	18	9
9	19	11
10	23	14
mean	21	13.7
std .dev	3.771	3.057

a)

One tailed,as we want test if it is higher or not only.

b)

df=10+10-2=18

critical t value=1.734

c)

Test statistic:

t=(21-13.7)/SQRT((3.771^2/10)+(3.057^2/10))

t=4.755

d)

As,test statistic is greater than 1.734,Reject the null hypothesis.

e)

There is sufficient evidence to conclude that the high-anomie metropolitan areas have higher suicide rates than low-anomie areas.

f)

critical t value for 0.01 alpha level=2.552

Decision will be same,as test statistic is greater than 2.552