Statistics homework HELP

Question

Sleeping outlier: A simple random sample of eight college freshmen were asked how many hours of sleep they typically got per night. The results were

7.5   8.0   6.5   24   8.5   6.5   7.0   7.5

Notice that one joker said that he sleeps 24 hours a day.

a.	The data contain an outlier that is clearly a mistake. Eliminate the outlier, then construct a 95% confidence interval for the mean amount of sleep from the remaining values.	b.	Leave the outlier in and construct the 95% confidence interval. Are the results noticeably different? Explain why it is important to check data for outliers

Answer 1

In this case I would choose option a simply because it is impossible to sleep 24 hours per night. For one thing, the person who answered 24 hours had to be awake to answer, so 24 hours couldn't happen. For another, except for some specific geographical areas during certain times of the year, a "night" will not last 24 hours. It is very important to ALWAYS review the raw data BEFORE applying statistical methods to check for anomalous values and see if they are the result of a careless mistake, e.g. a misplaced decimal point, or a likely impossible event, e.g. a newborn human baby that is 10 meters tall.