Healing potential of handling museum objects. Does handling a museum object have a positive impact on a sick patient’s well-being? To answer this question, researchers at the University College London collected data from 32 sessions with hospital patients (Museum & Society, Nov.

2009). Each patient’s health status (measured on a 100- LO5 point scale) was recorded both before and after handling museum objects such as archaeological artifacts and brass etchings. The data (simulated) are listed in the accompanying table.

Session Before After Session Before After 1 52 59 17 65 65 2 42 54 18 52 63 3 46 55 19 39 50 4 42 51 20 59 69 5 43 42 21 49 61 6 30 43 22 59 66 7 63 79 23 57 61 8 56 59 24 56 58 9 46 53 25 47 55 10 55 57 26 61 62 11 43 49 27 65 61 12 73 83 28 36 53 13 63 72 29 50 61 14 40 49 30 40 52 15 50 49 31 65 70 16 50 64 32 59 72

a. Explain why the data should be analyzed as paired differences.

b. Compute the difference between the “before” and

“after” measurements for each session.

c. Find the mean and standard deviation of the differences, part b.

d. Use the summary statistics, part

c, to find a 90% confidence interval for the true mean difference (“before”

minus “after”) in health status scale measurements

e. Interpret the interval, part

d. Does handling a museum object have a positive impact on a sick patient’s well-being?