Hygiene of handshakes, high fives, and fist bumps. Refer LO3 to the American Journal of Infection Control (Aug. 2014)

study of the hygiene of hand greetings, Exercise 9.24

(p. 479). The number of bacteria transferred from a gloved hand dipped into a culture of bacteria to a second gloved hand contacted by either a handshake, high five, or fist bump was recorded. Recall that the experiment was replicated five times for each contact method and the data used to compare the mean percentage of bacteria transferred for any two contact methods. The data are repeated in the table.
Handshake: 131 74 129 96 92 High five: 44 70 69 43 53 Fist bump: 15 14 21 29 21

a. What assumption about the variability of the data is required to make the mean comparisons for this small-sample study?

b. Conduct a test to determine if the assumption, part

a, is reasonably satisfied when comparing the handshake to the fist bump. Test using a = .05.

c. How does your answer, part

b, affect the validity of the inferences made in Exercise 9.24?