To evaluate if auditors might be helped in determining the chances of fraud if they carefully measure cash flow, samples of midlevel auditors from CPA firms were asked to indicate the chance of material fraud on a scale from 0 to 100 for a case. A random sample of 32 auditors used the cash-flow information. Their mean assessment was 35.44, and the sample standard deviation was 28.54. For an independent random sample of 32 auditors not using the cash-flow information, the sample mean and standard deviation were respectively 45.07 and 32.73.
Test at the 10% level the assumption that the population variances were the same for auditors using cash-flow information as for auditors not using cash- flow information against a two-sided hypothesis. Assume the populations are normally distributed.