Does listening to music while studying help or hinder students’ learning? Two statistics students designed an experiment to find out. They selected a random sample of 30 students from their mediumsized high school to participate. Each subject was given 10 minutes to memorize two different lists of 20 words, once while listening to music and once in silence. The order of the two word lists was determined at random; so was the order of the treatments. The difference  in the number of words recalledwas recorded for each subject. The mean difference was 1.57 and the standard deviation of the differences was 2.70.

a. If the result of this study is statistically significant, can you conclude that the difference in the ability to memorize words was caused by whether students were performing the task in silence or with music playing? Why or why not?

b. Do the data provide convincing evidence at the  α = 0.01 significance level that the number of words recalled in silence or when listening to music differs, on average, for students at this school?

c. Based on your conclusion in part (a), which type of error—a Type I error or a Type II error—could you have made? Explain your answer.

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305 0.200 = 20.0% (Silence Music) %3D 1526