Data Analysis with Microsoft Excel: Updated for Office 2007

260 Fundamentals of Statistics

You’ve been asked to examine the data and determine whether there was

a difference in revenue generated by rural and nonrural nursing homes dur-

ing this time period. Here are your hypotheses.

H 0 : Mean population revenue for rural nursing homes 5

Mean population revenue for nonrural homes

Ha: Mean population revenue for rural nursing homes 2

Mean population revenue for nonrural homes

To test the null hypothesis you can use the StatPlus Two-Sample t test com-

mand. We initially assume that there is no homogeneity in variance between

the two samples; however, we’ll reexamine this assumption as we go along.

To perform a two-sample t test on the nursing home revenues:

1 Click Two Sample Tests from the StatPlus menu and then click

2-Sample t test.

2 Verify that the Use column of category values option button is

selected.

Your data can be organized in one of two ways: (1) with two separate

columns for each sample or (2) with one column of data values and

one column of category values. The nursing home data are organized

in the second way, with the Location column indicating whether a

particular nursing home is rural or nonrural.

Figure 6-18

The Nursing

Home workbook