Question: At the Smith-Williams Manufacturing Company, new employees are expected to attend a 3-day seminar to learn about the company. At the end of the 3 days, they are tested to measure their knowledge about the company. Traditionally, the training method consisted of lecture accompanied by question and answer sessions. Management experimented with a different training method, which consists of having new employees view videocassettes for 2 days without any question and answer session. If the new system works as well as the traditional it will save the company a lot of money over a period of several years. The company managers want to know if there is a significant difference in the effectiveness of the two training sessions.

Assume managers “randomly” sample one group of 15 new hires to train traditionally and another group of 12 new hires to be trained by the 2-day videocassette method. . Also, assume the scores for the test are normally distributed and that the population variances are approximately equal. Choose the .05 alpha (significance) level for the t-test.

Test Scores for New Hires

Traditional Method New Method

52 44 52 47 47 59 54 55 65 52

48 42 51 42 43 57 64 53 53 56

56 50 53 45 48 53 57 58 62 57

Is there a significant difference between the two at the .05 level? Why do you say that? Explain your findings in words as though you were preparing the information for a memorandum for others at your company to read.