A university administrator claims that no more than $55 \%$ of students at their school own a car. A random sample of 80 students found that 48 own a car. Test this claim at a significance level of 0.05.


  1. Claim: p ? ? - $H _{\text {? }}: p$ ? ?
  2. Opposite: p ? ? - $H _?: p$ ? ?
  3. Test Statistic: ____
  4. Critical Value: ____
  5. Reject $H _0$ or Fail to Reject $H _0$
  6. Does the data appear to support the claim?

Verified Answer :

  • Claim: \(p \le 0.55\), Null Hypothesis (\(H_0\)): \(p \le 0.55\), Alternative Hypothesis (\(H_a\)): \(p > 0.55\).
  • Test Statistic: \(Z = \frac{0.6 - 0.55}{\sqrt{\frac{0.55 \times 0.45}{80}}} \approx 0.899\).
  • Critical Value: \(Z_{0.05} \approx 1.645\).
  • Decision: Since \(0.899 < 1.645\), Fail to reject \(H_0\). The data supports the claim that the proportion is no more than 55%.
  • Final Answer: \(\boxed{\text{Fail to reject } H_0}\)

Explanation

  1. Setup and Hypotheses

The university administrator claims that the population proportion of students who own a car is no more than 55%. We are testing this claim using a sample of 80 students where 48 own a car.

  1. Claim and Hypotheses:

The claim is that the proportion \(p\) is no more than 0.55.

  • Claim: \(p \le 0.55\).
  • Null Hypothesis (\(H_0\)): \(p \le 0.55\).
  • Alternative Hypothesis (\(H_a\)): \(p > 0.55\).

This is a right-tailed test because we are testing for a proportion greater than the specified value.

  1. Sample Data:
  • Sample size \(n = 80\).
  • Number of students owning a car \(x = 48\).
  • Sample proportion \(\hat{p} = \frac{x}{n} = \frac{48}{80} = 0.6\).
  1. Calculate the Test Statistic

To determine if our sample results significantly differ from the administrator's claim, we calculate the test statistic using the formula for a one-proportion z-test:
\[Z = \frac{\hat{p} - p_0}{\sqrt{\frac{p_0(1 - p_0)}{n}}}\]
where \(p_0 = 0.55\) and \(n = 80\).

  • Standard Error: \(\sqrt{\frac{0.55 \times (1 - 0.55)}{80}} = \sqrt{\frac{0.55 \times 0.45}{80}} = \sqrt{\frac{0.2475}{80}} \approx 0.0556\).
  • Test Statistic: \(Z = \frac{0.6 - 0.55}{0.0556} \approx 0.8989\).
  1. Determine Critical Value and Conclusion

For a significance level \(\alpha = 0.05\) in a right-tailed test, we look for the critical z-value that separates the top 5% of the standard normal distribution.

  • Using the standard normal distribution, the critical value \(Z_{0.05} \approx 1.645\).

Now, compare our calculated test statistic \(Z = 0.8989\) with the critical value \(Z_{critical} = 1.645\):

  • Since \(0.8989 < 1.645\), our test statistic does not fall into the rejection region.

Conclusion: We fail to reject the null hypothesis \(H_0\). There is not sufficient evidence to conclude that the proportion of students who own a car is greater than 55%. Therefore, the data appears to support the administrator's claim.

Examples

In real life, this method is used by researchers and businesses to validate claims against data. For example, a quality control manager might claim that no more than 5% of manufactured parts are defective. By testing a random sample, they can statistically determine if the production process meets that standard or if there is a problem that needs investigation, using a formula like \(Z = \frac{\hat{p} - p_0}{\sqrt{\frac{p_0(1-p_0)}{n}}}\) to decide if the observed defect rate is significantly high.