Question

While you’re often told that young people are not as likely as most people to turnout to vote, you suspect Binghamton students are different, especially Binghamton students majoring in Political Science and PPL. To investigate your suspicion, you survey the 36 students in our class and ask them whether they vote in the 2020 presidential election. Your class survey finds 24 of the 36 students voted. While reports vary, your research finds that the most credible report shows that nationwide 58 percent of the eligible citizens voted. Write the verbal hypothesis. Express the verbal hypothesis as a statistical hypothesis (being sure to define your symbols). Write your decision rule for rejecting or failing to reject your hypothesis State your statistical conclusion. Report your substantive conclusion.

Answer 1

The hypothesis is about the voting behavior of Binghamton students majoring in Political Science and PPL compared to the national average in the 2020 presidential election.

The verbal hypothesis would be: Binghamton students majoring in Political Science and PPL are more likely to vote in the 2020 presidential election compared to the nationwide percentage of eligible citizens who voted.

The statistical hypothesis would be: P(X > 58%), where X represents the proportion of Binghamton students majoring in Political Science and PPL who voted in the 2020 presidential election.

The decision rule for rejecting or failing to reject the hypothesis would involve comparing the p-value of the sample proportion to the significance level. If the p-value is less than the significance level, we reject the null hypothesis; otherwise, we fail to reject the null hypothesis.

The statistical conclusion would be based on the p-value and the significance level. If the p-value is less than the significance level, we would conclude that Binghamton students majoring in Political Science and PPL are indeed more likely to vote in the 2020 presidential election compared to the nationwide average. If the p-value is greater than or equal to the significance level, we would not have enough evidence to conclude that Binghamton students majoring in Political Science and PPL are more likely to vote.

The substantive conclusion would depend on the statistical conclusion. If the statistical conclusion supports the hypothesis, we can conclude that Binghamton students majoring in Political Science and PPL are more politically engaged and have a higher voter turnout compared to the national average. If the statistical conclusion does not support the hypothesis, we cannot make a substantive conclusion about the voting behavior of Binghamton students majoring in Political Science and PPL.

Learn more about Voting behavior