Question

The National Sleep Foundation reported a moderately strong positive association between the number of hours of sleep a person gets and the person’s ability to listen, learn, and solve problems

. a) Explain in the context of this problem what “positive association” means.

b) Hoping to improve academic performance, a professor recommends allowing students to take a nap prior to taking midterms and finals. Discuss the professor’s recommendations.

Answer 1

a)

The word positive association tells that the changes are in the same direction. According to the report there is positive association in the number of hours of sleep a person gets and the person’s ability to listen, learn, and solve problems. It means if a person sleeps for more hours then he has the stronger ability to listen, learn and solve problems. i.e. Increase in the sleeping hours will affect increase in the ability of person.

b)

Professor recommendation might be wrong because sleeping more for single day will not change the ability of person the study must be made on the significant number of days . If students sleep more for number of days then they have higher chance to increase their ability which will help in improving academic performance. One sample is not sufficient for measuring the significant changes.