Question: A rehabilitation center researcher was interested in examining the relationship between physical fitness prior to surgery of persons undergoing corrective knee surgery and time required in physical therapy until successful rehabilitation. Patient records in the rehabilitation center were examined, and 24 male subjects ranging in age from 18 to 30 years who had undergone similar corrective knee surgery during the past year were selected for the study. The number of days required for successful completion of physical therapy and the prior physical fitness status (below average, average, above average) for each patient follows:

a. Please test the hypothesis that the mean amount of time (in days) required for successful completion of physical therapy is equal for patients with all three types of prior physical fitness status vs. the hypothesis that differences exist using the ANOVA method. Test the hypothesis with alpha = 0.05. What do you find?

b. If differences between means exist, have SPSS conduct the Bonferroni multiple comparisons test and make sure that the significance level says .05. Use the SPSS output from the Bonferroni test to determine which means differ from which others and in what way. What do you find?

c. Summarize your findings based on this analysis. In other words, does prior physical fitness status matter in relation to length of time required for successful completion of physical therapy? If so, how does it matter?