Statistical Project

1
Statistical Project

• Peter Miterko

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Introduction

• Utah is universally stereotyped as a state
  filled with Mormons and it is generalized by
  outsiders as a state where religion influences
  everyone. Those who arent religious are still
  reminded of its encompassing overtones in
  politics and throughout society. Even the most
  disconnected college student is reminded of this
  as they are largely victimized into buying watery
  3.2, gas station beers. I face these stereotypes
  all the time when I travel home although I may
  not be a religious person people seem to think
  that at the least everyone else is Mormon and
  actively participating in religion. But for the
  last year and a half I have not been able to
  determine actually how many people around me hold
  true to this stereotype of being religious. How
  many of my fellow students go to church on a
  weekly basis?

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Summary Of Data Collection

• I set out to test the claim that more than half
  of students go to church on a weekly basis. Is it
  true that people on Campus attend church services
  regularly? The goal of my semester project was to
  find out how many Westminster College residential
  students go to church on a weekly basis. I
  collected the data using a random sample and by
  systematically sampling every 3rd student I saw
  in the residential courtyard on Monday, the 28th
  of November. I gathered the data on two separate
  occasions throughout the day, once in morning and
  then later again in the afternoon. I used a
  nominal level of measurement involving one
  population that was Westminster residential
  students. Once I verified that the student was a
  resident I simply repeated the same question to
  everyone being, do you go to church on a weekly
  basis? After acquiring 30 responses from
  residents I found that the proportion was 12/30
  or 40 of the people I interviewed are in fact
  church-goers.

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Data Collection
5
Hypothesis Test

• Again my survey was a nominal level of
  measurement involving one population and testing
  the claim that Utah is full of Mormons and
  religious people and more than half of
  residential students of Westminster College go to
  church. A brief statistical summary of my
  findings include 30 students interviewed. The
  sample proportion is 12/40 or .4. The null
  hypothesis is p.5 and thus q.5 as well. The
  alternative hypothesis is pgt.5. The test
  statistic when computed comes out to be
  -1.095445115, this sample is absent of any
  special circumstances thus I chose a .05
  significance level. Being a right-tailed test
  the critical region will be in the right tail.
  Referring to the table A-2 I found the critical
  value to be 1.645. Using the p-value method I
  again referred to table A-2 and found the value
  .1357, and being a right-tailed test I subtracted
  1-.1357 to get a p-value of .8643.

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Conclusion

• Because the test statistic does not fall into
  critical region and the p-value is greater than
  the significance level of .05 we fail to reject
  the claim. There is not sufficient evidence to
  warrant rejection of the claim that more then
  half of Westminster residents go to church on a
  weekly basis. In other words, we cant really
  dismiss the claim that more then half of students
  go to church. The stereotype stands. There are
  some inadequacies in my project as my sample size
  was relatively small in comparison to the actual
  population of residential students and may not
  actually represent the number of people who
  attend church. Furthermore, Utah has a population
  of two and a half million so any findings
  certainly cannot be held true for the whole
  state. I also did this project assuming that a
  weekday would yield a more representative sample
  as I was only interviewing 30 students, however
  the cold and snowy weather of my survey day may
  have skewed the data as considerably fewer
  students were out walking around.

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