4 In order to test the hypothesis that the girls in her class are taller than the boys, Mary measures the heights of the first five girls and five boys listed on the class register. She finds the mean height of the girls is 162cm and the mean height of the boys is 158cm. Is she justified in believing her hypothesis has been confirmed? Justify your answer fully. How would you have designed an investigation to test the hypothesis?

Question

4	In order to test the hypothesis that the girls in her class are taller than the boys, Mary measures the heights of the first five girls and five boys listed on the class register. She finds the mean height of the girls is 162cm and the mean height of the boys is 158cm. Is she justified in believing her hypothesis has been confirmed? Justify your answer fully. How would you have designed an investigation to test the hypothesis?

anonymous · Answer

She needs to test more girls & boys in her class, basically. She can't gain an accurate result if she's only testing 5 girls and 5 boys. Have they been randomly selected...? If not, they must be. And she must keep all the control variables the same (same equipment, same person measuring, etc). Good luck. :-)

anonymous · Answer

so what alternative investigation would I do? test all the boys and girls?

anonymous · Answer

Yep, that'd make the test more reliable & valid.

anonymous · Answer

thank you for the help.