Karmina Santos

November 20, 2015

3BIO3

BioStat
Homework

I.

Introduction
In Social Psychology, a stereotype is a thought that can be adopted about
specific types of individuals. These thoughts or beliefs may or may not accurately
reflect reality as they may be generalized within a group of people. There are plenty
of stereotypes present in todays society. One of these stereotypes includes the fact
that Asians, specifically the Chinese are better in Math than others who belong in
other ethnicities. According to Sun in an article on StudentsRND.org, the Chineses
language, phonetic ability, culture and other factors influence them to be better in
Math than the non-Chinese average person. This led to this research on the
comparison to see if there is enough statistical evidence to prove that there is a

II.

difference between the Math grades of a Chinese student and a Filipino student.
Methodology
In order to gather data, the researcher constructed a survey for respondents to
answer. The survey can be found on Figure 1, on VII. References/Appendix. The
survey was dispersed through social media, specifically Facebook. 60 students in the
University of Santo Tomas were chosen, 30 of which were Chinese or practicing
Chinese in the Philippines and the other 30 being Filipino. Both types of respondents
were finished with their College Algebra and were asked what their grade was for that
subject. After gathering the data, the mean for the Filipino students grades were
computed, this was also done for the Chinese students then the variance was
computed for each group respectively. The test statistic was calculated. The rejection

region used was = 0.05 as a basis for the significance level, this helped determine
whether or not the Null Hypothesis was accepted or rejected.

III.

Filipino Students
Chinese Students
Sample Size (n)
30
30
Sample Mean (x)
2.04167
1.6833
2
Sample Variance (S ) 0.2460489
0.193678
Table 1: Sample Size, Sample Mean and Sample Variance
Results
1. Null Hypothesis ( Ho 1= 2
2. Alternative Hypothesis ( Ha 1 2
x 1x 2
Z=
S 12
S 22
3.
+
n1
n2

Z=

4.
IV.

[ 2.041671.6833 ]

0.2460489 + 0.193678
30
30

Z= 2.096 8

=0.05 , Zcrit =1.96

5. Reject Ho
Conclusion
The Ho was rejected because the z-score was not within the Z critical.
This means there is a significant difference between the grades of Chinese students
and Filipino students. This proves that there is a 95% possibility that the stereotype
on the Chinese being better in Math is true.

V.

References/Appendices

Figure 1: Survey form

Algebra grades of Filipino and Chinese Students of the University of Santo Tomas
9
8
7
6
5

Chinese Student

Number of Students 4

Filipino Student

3
2
1
0

Algebra Grade

Graph 1: Data gathered from the students

References:
Katz, D., & Braly, K. (1933). Racial stereotypes of one hundred college
students. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 28, 280-290.
Mendenhall, W., Beaver, R. J, & Beaver, B. M. (2014). Introduction to probability
and statistics. 14th ed., Philippine ed. Cengage Learning Asia Pte Ltd.
Sun, J. (2012, December 7). Why Asians are Better Than Americans at
Math. StudentRND.