Chapter 10, Problem 7P

Research results suggest a relationship between the TV viewing habits of 5-year-old children and their future performance in high school. For example, Anderson, Huston, Wright, and Collins (1998) report that high school students who regularly watched Sesame Street as children had better grades in high school than their peers who did not watch Sesame Street. Suppose that a researcher intends to examine this phenomenon using a sample of 20 high school students.

The researcher first surveys the students’ parents to obtain information on the family’s TV viewing habits during the time that the students were 5 years old. Based on the survey results, the researcher selects a sample of $n=10$ students with a history of watching “Sesame Street” and a sample of $n=10$ students who did not watch the program. The average high school grade is recorded for each student and the data are as follows:

Average High School Grade

Watched Sesame

Street Did Not Watch Sesame Street 86 99 90 79 87 97 89 83 91 94 82 86 97 89 83 81 98 92 85 92
   $n=10$

   $M=93$

   $SS=200$
   $n=10$

   $M=85$

   $SS=160$

Use an independent-measures t test with $\alpha =.01$ to determine whether there is a significant difference between the two types of high school student.