Please help! I have no idea how to solve this

Question

Jenny F 42, Sandy F 36, Linda F 29, Lilly F 54, Nicole F 32, Sally F 23, Lisa F 22, Brook F 38, John M 60, Dave M 43, Shawn M 25, Kurt M 47, Brando M 52, Brain M 35 Review the age and gender data in the data set. Display gender information in a chart and plot age data in a box plot. Calculate the appropriate measure of central tendency and variability for the age and gender. What conclusion can you draw from the data? How would I solve this

Answer 1

Here's a little help...

women: ages in order from youngest to oldest are...

22, 23, 29, 32, 36, 38, 42, 54

the measures of central tendency are the mean and median (and mode)

mean=(22+23+29+32+36+38+42+54)/8=276/8=34.5

median=(32+36)/2=68/2=34

 

men: ages in order...

25, 35, 43, 47, 52, 60

mean=(25+35+43+47+52+60)/6=262/6=43.7

median=(43+47)/2=90/2=45

What conclusion can you draw from the data ?

Looking at the mean and median of both groups, the women are younger and the men are older.

The "average" age of the women is about 34 while the "average" age of the men is about 44.

The average age of the women is a little misleading because you have 4 women in their early 20's to early 30's and 6 women are under the age of 40. You also have an outlier of 54. If you did not have the 54, the mean would be about 32 and the median would be 32. The men's ages are more evenly distributed.

I hope this helps a little.

 

Answer 2

Okay, so first you need to run through the question (ignoring the data) and find the key terms.  

 

1) Display Gender information in a chart.

2) Plot age data in a "box plot".  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_plot

3) Calculate the central tendency and variability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_tendency

4) What conclusion would you draw?

 

In order to create the box plot, you are going to need to decide how to break up the ages, and calculate the statistics for the sample.  Since you don't have much data there, I think the assumption is that you will have a box chart with two sets of box-and-whiskers, one for the males and one for the females.  

 

Given that decision, the first item isn't important - you really have just one chart needed, with one box-and-whiskers each for men and women.  

 

In order to determine the box and whiskers for the chart, you'll have to calculate the mean age, the first and third quartiles, and the min and max ages.    

 

That's of course, assuming that those are the "appropriate" measures of central tendency for this data set.  

 

When you look at the box plots, determined as above, you should be able to make some conclusion about the ages of the people involved.   Are the men significantly older or younger?  Are the men or women more spread out, agewise?

 

If it looked like there was a big difference, I might put a third box, to show the entire population, and see if it gave me any clues as to what I should say.  

 

Until you actually analyze the data and the charts that resulted, I can't give you much of a clue as to what the problem is looking for.  

 

You can't post pictures here, but if you post the min, first quartile, mean, third quartile, and max here for each of the three groups (men, women, both), then I can tell you what those distros mean to me.