Normal (or average) body temperature of humans is often thought to be 98.6° F. Is that number really the average? To test this, we will use a data set obtained from 65 healthy female volunteers aged 18 to 40 that were participating in vaccine trials. We will assume this sample is representative of a population of all healthy females.
a. The mean body temperature for the 65 females in our sample is 98.39° F and the standard deviation is 0.743° F. The data are not strongly skewed. Use the Theory-Based Inference applet to find a 95% confidence interval for the population mean body temperature for healthy females.
b. Based on your confidence interval, is 98.6° F a plausible value for the population average body temperature or is the average significantly more or less than 98.6° F? Explain how you are determining this.
c. In the context of this study, was it valid to use the theory-based (t-distribution) approach to find a confidence interval? Explain your reasoning.