A psychologist investigates the effects of mindfulness meditation on anxiety levels (measured on a scale from 0 to 50, where higher scores indicate greater anxiety) in two groups of participants:
The descriptive statistics for the anxiety scores are:
Which of the following statements is the most accurate interpretation of these descriptive statistics?
Participants in Group A had a wider spread of anxiety scores than participants in Group B, and Group B's scores were more consistent.
Participants in Group A had more consistent anxiety scores than participants in Group B, and Group B had a higher average level of anxiety.
The range of anxiety scores in Group A is guaranteed to be exactly 4.24.24.2, while the range of scores in Group B is guaranteed to be exactly 16.816.816.8.
The mean score for Group B is a more representative summary of its group's performance because a larger standard deviation indicates greater reliability.
513 exam-style questions on OCR A Level Psychology Data recording, analysis and presentation. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.