Chapter 8.2, Problem 21BSC

Testing Claims About Proportions. In Exercises 9-32, test the given claim. Identify the null hypothesis, alternative hypothesis, test statistic, P-value, or critical value(s), then state the conclusion about the null hypothesis, as well as the final conclusion that addresses the original claim. Use the P-value method unless your instructor specifies otherwise. Use the normal distribution as an approximation to the binomial distribution, as described in Part 1 of this section.

21. Touch Therapy When she was 9 years of age, Emily Rosa did a science fair experiment in which she tested professional touch therapists to see if they could sense her energy field. She flipped a coin to select either her right hand or her left hand, and then she asked the therapists to identify the selected hand by placing their hand just under Emily’s hand without seeing it and without touching it. Among 280 trials, the touch therapists were correct 123 times (based on data in “A Close Look at Therapeutic Touch,” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 279, No. 13). Use a 0.10 significance level to test the claim that touch therapists use a method equivalent to random guesses. Do the results suggest that touch therapists are effective?