The average body temperature for healthy adults is 98.6° F. Is this statement true? Do all healthy people have exactly the same body temperature? A study was conducted a few years go to examine this belief.
The body temperatures of n = 130 healthy adults were measured (half male and half female). The average temperature from the sample was found to be = 98.249 with standard deviation s = 0.7332.
Do these statistics contradict the belief that the average body temperature is 98.6? If the true average temperature is indeed 98.6° F and we obtain a sample ofn = 130 healthy adults, we would not expect the sample mean to come out exactly equal to 98.6° F. We observed = 98.249- can this deviation from 98.6 be explained by chance or is it unlikely we would observe a value this different from 98.6?
Two people debating this issue could come to different conclusions.
Using the methods introduced in this module, discuss how you would determine if the data contradicts the hypothesis that the average body temperature is 98.6° F.