Performing a Sign Test In Exercises 7–22, (a) identify the claim and state Ho and Ha, (b) find the critical value, (c) find the test statistic, (d) decide whether to reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis, and (e) interpret the decision in the context of the original claim. Credit Card Charges A financial service accountant claims that the median credit card balance of college students is more than \$500. You randomly select the credit card accounts of 12 college students and record the balance for each account. The balances (in dollars) are listed below. At , can you support the accountant’s claim? (Adapted from Sallie Mae) [IMAGE]
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Step 1: Identify the claim and state the null hypothesis (H₀) and alternative hypothesis (Hₐ). Since the accountant claims the median credit card balance is more than \$500, the hypotheses are: H₀: median ≤ 500 and Hₐ: median > 500.
Step 2: Determine the significance level (α) for the test. The problem mentions a significance level (usually 0.05 unless otherwise specified). This will be used to find the critical value for the Sign Test.
Step 3: Calculate the differences between each student's credit card balance and the hypothesized median of \$500. For each balance, note whether it is above (+), below (-), or equal to 500 (ties are excluded).
Step 4: Count the number of positive differences (balances above \$500). This count is the test statistic for the Sign Test, often denoted as S.
Step 5: Using the binomial distribution with parameters n (number of non-tied observations) and p = 0.5, find the critical value corresponding to the significance level for a one-tailed test. Compare the test statistic S to the critical value to decide whether to reject or fail to reject H₀. Finally, interpret the decision in the context of the claim about the median credit card balance.
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Key Concepts
Here are the essential concepts you must grasp in order to answer the question correctly.
Sign Test
The Sign Test is a nonparametric method used to test hypotheses about the median of a population. It compares the number of observations above and below a hypothesized median, ignoring the magnitude of differences. This test is useful when data do not meet normality assumptions or when dealing with ordinal data.
The null hypothesis (Ho) represents the default claim, often stating no effect or no difference, while the alternative hypothesis (Ha) reflects the claim being tested. In this context, Ho states the median credit card balance is $500 or less, and Ha claims it is more than $500, indicating a one-sided test.
The critical value is a threshold from the binomial distribution that determines when to reject Ho based on the significance level (alpha). By comparing the test statistic (number of positive signs) to this value, we decide whether to reject or fail to reject Ho, guiding the interpretation of the test results.