Does adding math to a scientific paper make readers think that it has more value? Eriksson (2012) sent two abstracts of scientific papers to 200 people with postgraduate degrees. For each participant, one of the abstracts was randomly chosen and had a meaningless sentence inserted describing an unrelated mathematical model, while the other had no mathematical addition. The sentence had no conceptual connection to the subject matter of the abstract; it was just meaningless mathematics in that context. Participants were asked to rate the quality of the research in each abstract on a scale from 1 to 100, and the differences between the scores of their two abstracts—score of the abstract with math minus score of abstracts without math—were recorded. Participants were also asked for the subject matter of their postgraduate degree: math, science, technology (MST); medicine (M): humanities, social science (HS); or other (O). A box plot of the data and summaries of the results for each group are given below; the full data set can be found at whitlockschluter3e.zoology.ubc.ca.

a. Examine the graph and judge by eye how well the data likely fit the assumptions of ANOVA.

b. Test whether the subject background of the participants affected how much the added math changed their views of the abstracts on average.

c. Is the relationship between degree subject and score difference strong? Answer using R².

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Score difference 50- -50 ● MST .. M HS Degree subject O