OCR S4 2009 June — Question 2

Exam BoardOCR
ModuleS4 (Statistics 4)
Year2009
SessionJune
TopicWilcoxon tests

2 A company wishes to buy a new lathe for making chair legs. Two models of lathe, 'Allegro' and 'Vivace', were trialled. The company asked 12 randomly selected employees to make a particular type of chair leg on each machine. The times, in seconds, for each employee are shown in the table.
Employee123456789101112
Time on Allegro162111194159202210183168165150185160
Time on Vivace182130193181192205186184192180178189
The company wishes to test whether there is any difference in average times for the two machines.
  1. State the circumstances under which a non-parametric test should be used.
  2. Use two different non-parametric tests and show that they lead to different conclusions at the 5\% significance level.
  3. State, with a reason, which conclusion is to be preferred.