Question

Weddell seals live in the Antarctic and feed on fish during long, deep dives in freezing water. The seals benefit from these feeding dives, but the food they gain comes at a metabolic cost. The dives are strenuous. A set of researchers wanted to know whether feeding per se was also energetically expensive, over and above the exertion of a regular dive (Williams et al. 2004). They determined the metabolic cost of dives by measuring the oxygen use of seals as they surfaced for air after a dive. They measured the metabolic cost of 10 feeding dives and for each of these they also measured a nonfeeding dive by the same animal that lasted the same amount of time.

Which statistical hypothesis test is most appropriate for the design of this study?

a. Standardized z test for population means

b. One sample t-test for the mean

c. Two sample t-test for difference in means

d. Idontlikethis test its mean

e. Paired t-test for mean of differences

Answer 1

Here the samples are dependent because both the variables are being measured for same 10 dives. Hence,

The most appropriate test is paired t-test for mean of differences.

Option E is correct.