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edited 9/23/04
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HYPOTHESIZING
EXERCISES
Principal Jack Daniels of Frankling HS is concerned with the low standard test scores produced by his students. The school average is 480 out of 800 points. In order to involve the community more in the school, he obtains an $8000 grant to pay parents to tutor after school. The next round of standardized testing yields a school average of 500. Mr. Daniels calculates that if his next grant is $32,000, he can get scores up to an impressive 580.
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Student Directions
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| A. Is Mr. Daniels' reasoning sound? What hypothesis does he seem to be working with? What competing hypotheses can you provide? |
| B. Can you combine two or more hypotheses within a more powerful hypothesis? |
| C. For each hypothesis determine what information you would need to disconfirm its competitors. |
| D. You will be given additional information. Use it to rule out some of the hypothetical alternatives. |
Additional Information
(to be supplied by Instructor)
A. Research indicates that schools with high average standardized test scores have high parent involvement.
B. Forty tutors are hired for twenty hours each and twenty more parents volunteer their services.
C. Mr. Daniels is 38 years old and a new principal.
D. Mrs. Sanders, an excellent algebra tutor whose daughter attends Frankling HS, is hired.
E. 500 is not significantly different from 480.
F. The school population is officially 1200.
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Additional Student Questions (to be answered after all information is in.)
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| 1. What kind of hypothesis would make Mr. Daniel's age useful information? |
| 2. What do you make of the word "officially" in F? |
| 3. Following Mr. Daniels' logic, what score should result from an additional grant of $24,000? |
| 4. What plausible hypothesis can you make about the relationship between tutoring parents and the school status of their children? |
| 5. What is the highest possible number of students at Frankling High who made 800 on their standardized tests? |