A preliminary study of hourly wages paid to unskilled employees in three metropolitan areas was conducted. Seven employees were included from Area A, 9 from Area B, and 12 from Area C. The test statistic was computed to be 4.91. What can we conclude at the 0.05 level?
A)Mean hourly wages of unskilled employees of all areas are equal.
B)Mean hourly wages in at least two metropolitan areas are different.
C)More degrees of freedom are needed.
D)None of these is correct.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The test statistic (4.91) is compared with the critical value of the F-distribution with degrees of freedom (df) between groups (numerator) and within groups (denominator). Since no information is given about the df, we cannot determine the critical value. However, we can conclude that the p-value is less than 0.05 because the test statistic exceeds the critical value at the 0.05 level. Thus, we reject the null hypothesis that the mean hourly wages of unskilled employees are the same in all areas and conclude that mean hourly wages in at least two metropolitan areas are different.

A Preliminary Study of Hourly Wages Paid to Unskilled Employees