MTH140 Term Project Cindi Davis

Project MTH140
Describe what you plan to study For my topic I plan to determine the following: Is the mean of the age of death for people in Montlawn Cemetery equal to 75?

Describe how you will collect the data I plan to go to the cemetery (its quite local) and select 100 headstones from which to gather the data.

Describe what you expect to find out or hope to find out I expect that I will find out that the mean is somewhere close to that number. I will try not to select headstones consciously (like, avoiding including children) so that the results will be true. I might select a geographical area that includes that number of markers and use that to be completely random and fair.

Sampling For my sample I went to the cemetery and picked a random area that was populated well. I wrote down the name, birthdate and death date for 20 headstones in the area.

MTH140 Term Project Cindi Davis

Name
Lorainne Liles Therman Liles Marybeth Porter Joseph Porter, Jr. Edna B. Joye Joseph M. Joye Margaret Redden Lever Jeffrey Coe Harry S. Hardy Dora Seymour Lillie Mae Hickman William F Hickman Agnes Jones Garmistea D. Jones, Sr. James R. Collier Jack Smith Elizabeth Ligon James Ligon Ernest Peters Pauline Watkins Mean age of death Mode Median Standard Deviation

Birthdate 1/20/1934 11/29/1940 7/28/1909 12/2/1912 8/3/1920 1/3/1922 1/4/1926 1/5/1974 11/7/1900 2/17/1887 1/21/1911 7/1/1929 6/18/1900 8/22/1900 8/10/1904 1/1/1980 3/28/1920 4/24/1918 10/26/1898 7/30/1885

Date of Death 7/26/1974 3/4/1975 4/30/2005 8/8/1993 1/15/2012 2/21/2002 10/2/1973 9/19/1976 8/16/1964 3/8/1961 4/23/1976 10/22/1970 1/9/1993 3/5/1982 10/27/1981 8/16/2009 8/30/1994 11/1/1998 9/16/1974 6/22/1941

Age at death 40 34 95 80 91 80 47 2 63 74 65 41 92 81 77 29 74 80 75 55 63.75 80 74 24.56543357

MTH140 Term Project Cindi Davis

Graphs

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Age of Death in Montlawn Cemetery 2 9 4 0 5 3 4 0 1

1 5 4 0 2

5 0 5

7 1

MTH140 Term Project Cindi Davis

Hypothesis Test The sample is taken from 20 peoples age at death. (40; 34; 95; 80; 91; 80; 47; 2; 63; 74; 65; 41; 92; 81; 77; 29; 74; 80; 75; 55). The test is that at a = .05, the mean age is 75. Step 1: State the hypothesis: Ho: = 75 Ha: 75 This is a two-tailed test. Step 2: Specify the level of significance: a = .05 Step 3: Identify the degrees of freedom: Sample size = 20 d.f. = n-1 d.f. = 19 Step 4: Determine the critical values: With a = .05 and 19 degrees of freedom, the critical value it t = 2.093 Step 5: Determine the rejection regions: t < -2.093 and t > 2.093

MTH140 Term Project Cindi Davis

Step 6: Find the standardized statistic: t =

t=

t = -2.047 Step 7: Draw a conclusion: Because the critical value t is not in the rejection region, we fail to reject the null hypothesis. (but, wow, how very close)

Conclusion: I feel the major weakness was the sample size. There are thousands of people buried in that cemetery, and a sample of 20 was not enough to determine true population mean. For example, my sample had a two year old in it, (plus FIVE other people under 50) which brought the average way down. I did the calculations without including the youngest, and the mean was much closer to the predicted age of 75. Logic tells me that if one variable can affect the data that much then the sample should be much larger, so outliers do not have as much effect. I found a chart that actually lists the margin of error by sample size. It states that the margin of error for a sample size of 20 is 22.4%. It also states that a sample size of 100 has a margin of error of 10%, and sample of 500 has a margin of error of 4.5%. I think then that 500 would be a sufficient sample size to properly identify the population mean in this instance. http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Soc_participants.shtml