Question

Suppose you want to determine if practicing yoga regularly reduces anxiety. So you enroll a sample of participants in a 6-week yoga class and measure their anxiety before and after the study period using the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (a well- established measurement survey, where higher scores indicate higher levels of anxiety). a. State the appropriate null and alternative hypotheses for this study. (1pt) b. If you test resulted in a p-value of 0.12, what would be your conclusion? (1pt) c. List a possible confounding variable and briefly describe what impact it might have on the study results.

Answer 1

(a) H0: NUll Hypothesis:

HA: Alternative Hypothesis:

(b)

Since p - value = 0.12 is greater than = 0.05, the difference is not significant. Fail to reject null hypothesis.

Conclusion:
The data do not support the claim that practicing yoga regularly reduces anxiety.

(c)

The possible confounding variable in this study is as follows:
There are many factors which can affect anxiety other than yoga: such as person's occupation (very sensitive involving lot of tension etc.), his health conditions like High Blood Pressure etc., his family background, his financial conditions, etc.

If his occupation involves tension, his anxiety level will increase.

If he is having High Blood Pressure, his anxiety level will increase.

If his family is not supportive, his anxiety will increase.

If his financial condition is poor, he will have lot of worries in meeting his expenses and his anxiety will increase.