Question

Specify the null hypothesis for each of the following situations. (Remember, the null hypothesis usually represents a negation of the researcher’s hunch of hypothesis)

A) Another sociologist suspects that proportionately more crimes are committed during the two days of the weekend (Saturday and Sunday) than during the five other days of the week. HINT. There are just two (unequal) proportions: one representing the two weekend days and the other representing the five week days.

B) A biologist suspects that, upon being released 10 miles south of their home roost, migratory birds are more likely to fly toward home (north) rather than in any of the three remaining directions (east, south, or west).

C) A political scientist suspects that there is a relationship between the educational level of adults (grade school, high school, college) and whether or not they favor right-to-abortion legislation.

D) An organizational psychologist wonders whether employees’ annual evaluations, as either satisfactory or unsatisfactory, tend to reflect whether they have fixed or flexible work schedules.

Answer 1

A) Let p​​​​​​1​​​ denote proportion of crimes committed on weekends and p​​​​​​2​​​ denote the proportion of crimes committed on weekdays.

We want to test the claim that P1 is greater than P2. For this, our null hypothesis will be

B) We want to test whether migratory birds fly back home when released or randomly in any direction.

So, the null hypothesis will be

Ho: The migratory birds are equally likely to fly in any of the four direction when released.

And alternative will be

H1: The migratory birds are more likely to fly back home i.e north when released.

C) Here, we are testing association between education level and whether or not they favour the legislation.

So, the null hypothesis will be

Ho: There is no association between the level of education and their choice of favouring the right to abortion legislation.

D) We want to test whether working schedule affects the satisfaction of the employee

Here, the appropriate null hypothesis will be

Ho: The satisfaction of an employee is independent of their working schedule