Business Mathematics Assignment

Group No: 6 Darshit Desai (08) Ankita Meshram (27) Anish Sanghvi (42) Harsh Shah (45)

Air Force Training Program

An Air Force introductory course in electronics uses a personalized system of instruction whereby each student views a videotaped lecture and then is given a programmed instruction text. The students work independently with the text until they have completed the training and passed a test. Of concern is the varying pace at which the students complete this portion of their training program. Some students are able to cover the programmed instruction text relatively quickly, whereas other students work much longer with the text and require additional time to complete the course. The fast students wait until the slow students complete the introductory course before the entire group proceeds together with other aspects of their training. A proposed alternative system involves use of computer-assisted instruction. In this method, all students view the same videotaped lecture and then each is assigned to a computer terminal for further instruction. The computer guides the student, working independently, through the self-training portion of the course. To compare the proposed and current methods of instruction, an entering class of 122 students was assigned randomly to one of the two methods. One group of 61 students used the current programmed-text method and the other group of 61 students used the proposed computerassisted method. The time in hours was recorded for each student in the study. The following data are provided on the CD that accompanies the text in the data set Training.

Q.1) Use appropriate descriptive statistics to summarize the training time data for each method. What similarities or differences do you observe from the sample data? Some descriptive statistics to summarize the training time data is as follows:

Current Training Method Mean Median Mode Range Minimum Maximum Count 75.06557377 76 76 19 65 84 61

Proposed Computer - Assisted Method Mean Median Mode Range Minimum Maximum Count 75.42622951 76 76 13 69 82 61

From the sample data we observe that, the Median and Mode of both the training methods is same. It implies that in both the methods, the central value of sample data is equal (76 hours). Also, the range of Current Training Method (19) is more than the Proposed Computer Assisted Method (13), it shows that sample data of current training method is widely dispersed as compared to that of proposed computer assisted method.

Frequency Distribution of the Sample Data is shown below. Current Training Method Number Frequency 65 1 66 1 67 0 68 0 69 3 70 4 71 1 72 6 73 5 74 6 75 3 76 8 77 6 78 5 79 6 80 1 81 2 82 2 83 0 84 1 Total 61 Proposed Computer Assisted Method Number Frequency 65 0 66 0 67 0 68 0 69 2 70 0 71 1 72 6 73 4 74 5 75 10 76 12 77 11 78 6 79 1 80 2 81 0 82 1 83 0 84 0 Total 61

Q.2) Use the methods of Chapter 10 to comment on any difference between the population means for the two methods. Discuss your findings. Current Training Method Mean Standard Error Median Point Estimator of the difference between two population means Proposed Computer - Assisted Method 75.42622951 0.320909752 76

75.06557377 Mean 0.505093646 Standard Error 76 Median -0.360655738

From the above descriptive statistics, we can observe that the mean completion time of Current Training Method (75.06 hours) and mean completion time of Proposed Computer - Assisted Method (75.42 hours) are nearly the same. It can be similarly observed from point estimator of the difference between two population means, which equals to -0.360. It implies that if any of the either system is used for training, the completion time by a student for the course will be same.

Q.3) Compute the standard deviation and variance for each training method. Conduct a hypothesis test about the equality of population variances for the two training methods. Discuss your findings. Current Training Method Proposed Computer - Assisted Training Standard Deviation 3.944907487 Standard Deviation 2.506385288 Sample Variance 15.56229508 Sample Variance 6.281967213

The standard deviation of Proposed Computer - Assisted (2.506 hours) is less as compared to the standard deviation of Current Training Method (3.944 hours), which indicates Proposed Computer - Assisted Training Method has less variation. Hypothesis: F-Test Two-Sample for Variances ( = 0.01) Current 75.06557377 15.56229508 61 60 2.477296451 0.000289016 1.836259361

Mean Variance Observations df F P(F<=f) one-tail F Critical one-tail

Proposed 75.42622951 6.281967213 61 60

As value of F (2.477) is greater than Fcritical (1.83), Null Hypothesis (Ho) is rejected. We can conclude that the two methods differ in terms of variance. The data shows that the Proposed Computer Assisted Method has the smaller variance indicating that students trained under this method are more consistent in terms of completion time.

Q.4) What conclusion can you reach about any differences between the two methods? What is your recommendation? Explain.
Based on the data available, the Proposed Computer - Assisted Method is preferred. The two methods are very close in terms of mean completion times with the 95% confidence interval of the difference being 1.55 to 0.83 hours. However, the Proposed Computer Assisted Method has a significantly lower variance. Under the Proposed Computer Assisted Method, students are more likely to complete the training in approximately the same amount of time. There should be less chance of faster students waiting for slower students to complete the training. Q.5) Can you suggest other data or testing that might be desirable before making a final

decision on the training program to be used in the future? Before making a final decision, we recommend that data must be collected on the amount of qualitative learning that a student gets from the two methods. This time data only favors switching to the Proposed Computer - Assisted Method. It is necessary to know the difference between the quality of training provided by both the methods. Both groups could be given an examination at the end of the training program. Analysis of the examination scores would determine if the programs were similar or different in terms of the amount of learning provided by the programs. This analysis should be made prior to the final decision to switch to the proposed method.

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