Air Force Training Program
An Air Force introductory course in electronics uses a personalizedsystem of instruction whereby each student views a videotapedlecture and then is given a programmed instruction text. Thestudents work independently with the text until they have completedthe training and passed a test. Of concern is the varying pace atwhich the students complete this portion of their training program.Some students are able to cover the programmed instruction textrelatively quickly, whereas other students work much longer withthe text and require additional time to complete the course. Thefast students wait until the slow students complete theintroductory course before the entire group proceeds together withother aspects of their training.
A proposed alternative system involves use of computer-assistedinstruction. In this method, all students view the same videotapedlecture and then each is assigned to a computer terminal forfurther instruction. The computer guides the student, workingindependently, through the self-training portion of thecourse.
To compare the proposed and current methods of instruction, anentering class of 122 students was assigned randomly to one of thetwo methods. One group of 61 students used the currentprogrammed-text method and the other group of 61 students used theproposed computer-assisted method. The time in hours was recordedfor each student in the study. The following data areprovided.
Course Completion Times (hours) for Current Training Method
76 76 77 74 76 74 74 77 72 78 73
78 75 80 79 72 69 79 72 70 70 81
76 78 72 82 72 73 71 70 77 78 73
79 82 65 77 79 73 76 81 69 75 75
77 79 76 78 76 76 73 77 84 74 74
69 79 66 70 74 72
Course Completion Times (hours) for Proposed Computer-AssistedMethod
74 75 77 78 74 80 73 73 78 76 76
74 77 69 76 75 72 75 72 76 72 77
73 77 69 77 75 76 74 77 75 78 72
77 78 78 76 75 76 76 75 76 80 77
76 75 73 77 77 77 79 75 75 72 82
76 76 74 72 78 71
Managerial Report
1. Use appropriate descriptive statistics to summarize the trainingdata for each method. What similarities or differences do youobserve from the sample data?
2. Use the tests of hypothesis procedure to comment on anydifference between the population means for the two methods.Discuss your findings.
3. Compute the standard deviation and variance for each trainingmethod. Conduct a hypothesis test about the equality of populationvariances for the two training methods. Discuss yourfindings.
4. What conclusion can you reach about any difference between thetwo methods?
5. Can you suggest other data or testing that might be desirablebefore making a final decision on the training program to be usedin the future?
Please provide a detail solution. For Excel functions pleaseprovide the formula used to determine the values.
