Many studies have been conducted on the effects of having a pet on the response to medical problems and on mental health. But doctors in Berlin were interested in the effects of having a pet bird on lung cancer. (I assume they were wondering if birds might cause air pollution that could lead to lung cancer.) They asked 239 patients with lung cancer and 429 controls without lung cancer whether they had a pet bird. Ninety eight of the 239 patients did have a bird, while 101 of the 429 controls had a bird. (That strikes me as a very high percentage of bird owners, but those are the data.)
What assumptions would need to underlie our analysis for this experiment?
A) The observations are independent.
B) There is no correlation between the variables.
C) Expected values would be normally distributed.
D) both a and c

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Assumption (a) states that the observations are independent, which is necessary for statistical analysis. Assumption (b) states that there is no correlation between the variables, which is not necessary in this case since we are simply comparing the proportion of bird owners in the lung cancer group versus the control group. Assumption (c) states that expected values would be normally distributed, which is relevant for some statistical tests but not necessary for this simple comparison of proportions. Therefore, the best choice is (D) since assumption (a) is necessary and (c) may be relevant for some tests.

Many Studies Have Been Conducted on the Effects of Having