MS 150 Statistics q11 11.2 • Name:

Over the past ten years children have had increasing access to electronic game playing devices such as Nintendo, xBox, and Sony Playstation. If children are increasingly staying at home, what of the older self-entertainment options such as reading books and the public library? More broadly, are children checking out fewer books to read? The data in the table are children's books circulation numbers for thirty smaller public libraries in Colorado. One set of data is for 1997, the other set is for nine years later in 2006.

Does the mean children's books circulation data suggest that fewer books are being checked out by children in 2006 than did so in 1997?

Run a t-test for a difference of the means for the data shown. Write up your conclusions below. Use both statistical language and common everyday English to tell me about whether circulation rates for children's books have changed and, if so, in what direction from 1997 to 2006.

Note that you cannot run a paired t-test: not all libraries have data for both years. Use a t-test for independent samples.