a. It is a well known fact that talking on a cell phone impairs a driver more th

Question

a. It is a well known fact that talking on a cell phone impairs a driver more than talking to a person sitting in the passenger seat. This is because a passenger can see the road and will stop talking during dangerous driving conditions. We want to know if this is only true for passengers that have experience driving. We recruit 40 participants to be a passenger during a driving simulation and record how many words they say during "dangerous" scenarios. All 20 participants are 18, but only half of them have a driver's license. What statistical test would we use to compare the number or words spoken for people with and without licenses. (independent samples t-test, or dependent samples t-test)

b. Lucy is studying the effects of emotions on decision making. All of her participants are going to estimate how much they would be willing to pay for a mystery prize. Half of the participants are shown a happy video before they make their estimate. The other half of the participants are shown a violent video before they make their estimate. What test will Lucy use to compare the two groups? (independent samples t-test, dependent samples t-test, z-test, or one sample t-test)

Explanation / Answer

(a) Since we want to know whether the above theory is true for driving personnel only, and since persons having license are considered as drivers, dependent sample t-test should be used. this is because being a driver depends on having a license or not.

(b) To compare the two groups, Lucy shall use the independent samples t-test as the participants who saw the happy video is independent of the participants who saw the violent video. Considering these two groups as two individual samples, being independent of each other, independent sample t-test should be used.   

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