17. A newspaper article reported that the typical American family spent an average of $75 for
Easter candy last year. A sample of N=16 families this year reported spending a mean of
$85, with a standard deviation of $20. What hypothesis testing technique should be used to
determine whether there has been a significant change in holiday spending?
a. t-test for two independent samples
b. t-test for matched pairs
c. z-test for population mean
d. t-test for population mean
How about d? You have only one sample with a small sample size.
To determine whether there has been a significant change in holiday spending, we need to compare the mean spending of the current year's sample with the reported mean spending of the previous year's population. Since we only have the mean and standard deviation of the current year's sample, we will use the t-test for population mean, specifically the one-sample t-test.
Therefore, the correct answer is d. t-test for population mean.