Chapter 8

Hypothesis Testing

8-4 Testing a Claim About a Mean

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-1

 Key Concept
This section presents methods for testing a claim about a
population mean.

Part 1 deals with the very realistic and commonly used

case in which the population standard deviation σ is not
known.

Part 2 discusses the procedure when σ is known, which is

very rare.

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-2

 Part 1
When σ is not known, we use a “t test” that incorporates
the Student t distribution.

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-3

 Notation

n = sample size

x = sample mean

 x = population mean

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-4

 Requirements
1) The sample is a simple random sample.
2) Either or both of these conditions is satisfied:
The population is normally distributed or n > 30.

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-5

 Test Statistic

x  x
t
s
n

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-6

 Running the Test
P-values: Use technology or use the Student t
distribution in Table A-3 with degrees of freedom
df = n – 1.

Critical values: Use the Student t distribution with

degrees of freedom df = n – 1.

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-7

 Important Properties of the
Student t Distribution
1. The Student t distribution is different for different sample
sizes (see Figure 7-5 in Section 7-3).
2. The Student t distribution has the same general bell shape
as the normal distribution; its wider shape reflects the
greater variability that is expected when s is used to
estimate σ.
3. The Student t distribution has a mean of t = 0.
4. The standard deviation of the Student t distribution varies
with the sample size and is greater than 1.
5. As the sample size n gets larger, the Student t distribution
gets closer to the standard normal distribution.

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-8

 Example

Listed below are the measured radiation emissions (in W/kg)

corresponding to a sample of cell phones.

Use a 0.05 level of significance to test the claim that cell

phones have a mean radiation level that is less than 1.00
W/kg.

0.38 0.55 1.54 1.55 0.50 0.60 0.92 0.96 1.00 0.86 1.46

The summary statistics are: x  0.938 and s  0.423 .

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-9

 Example - Continued

Step 1: The claim that cell phones have a mean radiation

level less than 1.00 W/kg is expressed as μ < 1.00 W/kg.

Step 2: The alternative to the original claim is μ ≥ 1.00 W/kg.

Step 3: The hypotheses are written as:

H 0 :   1.00 W/kg
H1 :   1.00 W/kg

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-10

 Example - Continued

Step 4: The stated level of significance is α = 0.05.

Step 5: Because the claim is about a population mean μ, the

statistic most relevant to this test is the sample mean: x .

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-11

 Example - Continued

Step 6: Calculate the test statistic and then find the P-value or
the critical value from Table A-3:

x   x 0.938  1.00
t   0.486
s 0.423
n 11

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-12

 Example - Continued

Step 7: P-value method: Technology, such as a TI-83/84 Plus

calculator can output the P-value of 0.3191. Since the P-value
exceeds α = 0.05, we fail to reject the null hypothesis.

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-13

 Example

Step 8: Because we fail to reject the null hypothesis, we

conclude that there is not sufficient evidence to support the
claim that cell phones have a mean radiation level that is less
than 1.00 W/kg.

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-14

 Example – Confidence
Interval Method
We can use a confidence interval for testing a claim about μ.

For a two-tailed test with a 0.05 significance level, we

construct a 95% confidence interval.

For a one-tailed test with a 0.05 significance level, we

construct a 90% confidence interval.

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-15

 Example – Confidence
Interval Method
Using the cell phone example, construct a confidence interval
that can be used to test the claim that μ < 1.00 W/kg,
assuming a 0.05 significance level.

Note that a left-tailed hypothesis test with α = 0.05

corresponds to a 90% confidence interval.

Using methods described in Section 7.3, we find:

0.707 W/kg < μ < 1.169 W/kg

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-16

 Example – Confidence
Interval Method
Because the value of μ = 1.00 W/kg is contained in the
interval, we cannot reject the null hypothesis that μ = 1.00
W/kg .

Based on the sample of 11 values, we do not have sufficient

evidence to support the claim that the mean radiation level is
less than 1.00 W/kg.

Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-17

 Part 2
When σ is known, we use test that involves the standard
normal distribution.

In reality, it is very rare to test a claim about an unknown

population mean while the population standard deviation is
somehow known.

The procedure is essentially the same as a t test, with the

following exception:

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 Test Statistic for Testing a Claim
About a Mean (with σ Known)
x  x
The test statistic is: z

n

The P-value can be provided by technology or the

standard normal distribution (Table A-2).

The critical values can be found using the standard normal

distribution (Table A-2).
Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Section 8.4-19
 Example

If we repeat the cell phone radiation example, with the

assumption that σ = 0.480 W/kg, the test statistic is:
x  x 0.938  1.00
z   0.43
 0.480
n 11

The example refers to a left-tailed test, so the P-value is the

area to the left of z = –0.43, which is 0.3336 (found in Table A-
2).
Since the P-value is large, we fail to reject the null and reach
the same conclusion as before.

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