The \"freshman 15\" is the name of a common belief that college students, partic

Question

The "freshman 15" is the name of a common belief that college students, particularly women, gain an average of 15 pounds during their first year of college. In one study of 110 female firstyear college students (Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol 17, pp.119126, 1993), the mean weight was 130.6 pounds at the beginning of the study and 131.4 pounds six months later. The standard deviation was about 20 pounds at each time. a. Estimate the change in the mean weight over this sixmonth period. b. Is this sufficient information to find a confidence interval or conduct at estimate about the change in the mean over six months? If not what else do you need to know?

Explanation / Answer

a.The change in the mean weight over this sixmonth period is: (130.6-131.4)pounds

=-0.8 pounds.

b.No, there is no sufficient information to find a confidence interval or conduct at estimate about the change in the mean over six months.

One needs to know the standard deviations of the difference scores in order to compute standard error of mean which again is needed to compute margin of error and confidence interval.

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