The paper “Ready or Not? Criteria for Marriage Readiness among Emerging Adults” (Journal of Adolescent Research [2009]: 349–375) surveyed emerging adults (defined as age 18 to 25) from five different colleges in the United States. Several questions on the survey were used to construct a scale designed to measure endorsement of cohabitation. The paper states that “on average, emerging adult men (M = 3.75, SD = 1.21) reported higher levels of cohabitation endorsement than emerging adult women (M = 3.39, SD = 1.17).” The sample sizes were 481 for women and 307 for men.
a. Carry out a hypothesis test to determine if the reported difference in sample means provides convincing evidence that the mean cohabitation endorsement for emerging adult women is significantly less than the mean for emerging adult men for students at these five colleges.
b. What additional information would you want in order to determine whether it is reasonable to generalize the conclusion of the hypothesis test from Part (a) to all college students?