Question

An educational researcher studied the change in student attitude towards mathematics produced by an introduction to math course offered for freshman at a local community college. At the beginning of the term, a specially constructed attitude test was given to a random sample of 15 students, and then repeated at the end of the term. The attitude scores for this sample in the attitude test administered before and after are as follows:

Student	Pre-test	Post-test
1	50	51
2	33	34
3	40	37
4	62	60
5	25	28
6	18	22
7	32	36
8	41	44
9	41	46
10	24	32
11	63	63
12	15	25
13	33	49
14	52	53
15	19	34

Use SPSS and the step-by-step method of hypothesis testing to determine, with the use of a parametric test, whether there was a significant improvement in attitude towards mathematics as a result of the course. Attach the SPSS output file.

Justify your selection of the appropriate parametric test and the significance level.

Review any basic statistics test, and explain what are the assumptions of the parametric statistical test you selected?

Bonus: If you were to perform a nonparametric statistical test on the same data set, which statistical test would you likely run and why?

Answer 1

Paired t-test will be used

1 - pre-test

2- post test

Ho:

Ha:

Paired T-Test and CI: Post-test, Pre-test

Paired T for Post-test - Pre-test

               N Mean StDev SE Mean
Post-test     15 40.93 12.52     3.23
Pre-test      15 36.53 15.29     3.95
Difference 15   4.40 5.64     1.46

95% lower bound for mean difference: 1.83
T-Test of mean difference = 0 (vs > 0): T-Value = 3.02 P-Value = 0.005

since p-value = 0.005 < 0.05

we reject the null hypothesis

and conclude that there was a significant improvement in attitude towards mathematics as a result of the course.