1. Reaction Times for Males Vs Females

2. Data The data comes from the Australian census at school website and as such would be expected to be a representative of all students attending year 10 in Australia.

3. SSSU Analysis Shift and Centre Spread Shape Unusual What do you see? Where do you see it? What does it mean?

4. Analysis

5. Analysis [Shift and Centre] The males have a slightly faster median than the females. The males median is 0.31 seconds and the females median is 0.32 seconds. A difference of 0.01 seconds. This can be seen given the male’s box and whisker plot is slightly shifted to the left relative to the female plot. The shift is so small, however, it could easily be reversed in a second sample.

6. Analysis

7. Analysis [SPREAD] The males have a much larger range or spread than the females. The males have the slowest reaction time of 1.4 seconds and the fastest reaction time of less than 0.1 seconds. The inter- quartile range for the males is also larger for the males than of the females. The males IQR is 0.15 seconds and the females IQR is 0.1 seconds. It appears that the female reaction times are more consistent than the less predicable male reaction times.

8. Analysis

9. Analysis [Shape] The shape of the females is more ‘belled shaped’ than the males which is more uniformly distributed. The females data is slightly skewed to the right as a result of a few larger reaction times. If a new sample were collected it is predicted that both shapes would become more ‘normal’ and be right skewed given the nature of the data.

10. Analysis

11. Analysis [Unusual] There is an outlier for the males of 1.4 seconds. This is either an incorrect data entry or the student wasn’t paying attention during the measurement process. The data point of 0.1 seconds for males is not realistic. It is likely that this reaction time not repeatable but rather a stroke of luck. For females possibly the value of 0.7 seconds is an actual value. Alternatively it could equally be a result from someone who was slightly distracted while the data was being collect.