9.44 Public Policy and Political Science The Avenal State Prison in California h
ID: 3365717 • Letter: 9
Question
9.44 Public Policy and Political Science The Avenal State Prison in California has thousands of files on former inmates estimated 20 million pages of documents. A proposal has been made to archive many of these old files to compact discs. The state will release money for this project only if prison officials present evidence to suggest the true mean age of all files is greater than 10 years. A random sample of files will be obtained, and the information in the sample will be used to test the hypotheses ,an H0 :=10 versus Ha: > 10 a. Describe a type I error and a type II error in this context. b. From the warden's perspective, which error is more serious? Why? c. From a state senator's point of view, which error is more serious? Why?
Explanation / Answer
a) A type I error is the incorrect rejection of the true null hypothesis. This means that the mean age of the files is actually equal to 10 years, but we reject this claim and accept the alternate that the files are greater than 10 years and hence will archive them into compact discs.
A type II error is the incorrect retention of a false null hypothesis, This means that the mean age of the files is actually greater than 10 years, but we reject this claim and accept the null that the files age are equal to 10 years and hence wont archive them into compact discs.
(b) From the Wardent view a Type II error is more serious, as even though the mean age is greater than 10 years, the files wont get archived, and it will cause issues regarding space to keep these old files and hence there will maintenance cost, loss of data due to erosion, dust etc.
(c) From the state senators point of view, a Type I error is more serious, as the files age is 10 years, and could have still been kept in storage, but now they will be compacted for which the state will release taxpayers money for doing something that need not have been done.
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