Introduction to Probability and Statistics for Engineers and Scientists

320 Chapter 8:Hypothesis Testing

this can be tested by

accepting H 0 if −tα/2,n− 1 <

√

n

W

Sw

<tα/2,n− 1

rejecting H 0 otherwise

EXAMPLE 8.4d An industrial safety program was recently instituted in the computer chip
industry. The average weekly loss (averaged over 1 month) in man-hours due to accidents
in 10 similar plants both before and after the program are as follows:

Plant Before After A−B

1 30.5 23 −7.5

2 18.5 21 2.5

3 24.5 22 −2.5

4 32 28.5 −3.5

5 16 14.5 −1.5

6 15 15.5 .5

7 23.5 24.5 1

8 25.5 21 −4.5

9 28 23.5 −4.5

10 18 16.5 −1.5

Determine, at the 5 percent level of significance, whether the safety program has been
proven to be effective.

SOLUTION To determine this, we will test

H 0 :μA−μB≥0 versus H 1 :μA−μB< 0

because this will enable us to see whether the null hypothesis that the safety program has
not had a beneficial effect is a reasonable possibility. To test this, we run Program 8.3.2,
which gives the value of the test statistic as−2.266, with

p-value=P{Tq≤−2.266}=.025

Since thep-value is less than .05, the hypothesis that the safety program has not been
effective is rejected and so we can conclude that its effectiveness has been established (at
least for any significance level greater than .025). ■

Note that the paired-samplet-test can be used even though the samples are not
independent and the population variances are unequal.