Question

A school is interested to see if a test preparation course improves students’ test scores. The 50 students are given pre-test before taking the course and post-test right after taking the course. Both test scores were recorded.

a. What are the variable(s) in the study? (include units)

b. What is the level of measurement of the variable(s)? (Nominal, Ordinal, Continuous)

c. If there are groups are they related in any way?

d. Is it appropriate to use a parametric test?

e. What statistical test is most appropriate to use in analyzing the data given the information provided.

Answer 1

(a) The variables in the study are the pre-test scores of students and post-test scores of students.
(b) The level of measurement of these 2 variables is Continuous.
(c) There is no such group here because the same 50 students have been administered both the pre-test and the post-test and the respective scores are recorded.
(d) No, it is not appropriate to use a parametric test because no distribution of the data is mentioned here.
(e) For this data, we should use the Wilcoxon signed rank test, since we are dealing with paired differences (of students' scores).