The thrill of a close game. Do women enjoy the thrill of a close basketball game as much as men do? To answer this question, male and female undergraduate students were recruited to participate in an experiment (Journal of Sport & Social Issues, Feb. 1997). The students watched one of eight live televised games of an NCAA basketball tournament. (None of the games involved a LO4 home team to which the students could be considered emotionally committed.) The “suspense” of each game was classified into one of four categories according to the closeness of scores at the game’s conclusions: minimal

(15-point or greater differential), moderate (10–14-point differential), substantial (5–9-point differential), and extreme (1–4-point differential). After the game, each student rated his/her enjoyment on an 11-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 10 (extremely). The enjoyment rating data were analyzed as a 4 * 2 factorial design, with suspense (four levels) and gender (two levels) as the two factors. The 4 * 2 = 8 treatment means are shown in the following table.

Gender Suspense Male Female Minimal 1.77 2.73 Moderate 5.38 4.34 Substantial 7.16 7.52 Extreme 7.59 4.92 Based on Gan, Su-lin, et al. “The thrill of a close game: Who enjoys it and who doesn’t?” Journal of Sport & Social Issues, Vol. 21, No. 1, Feb. 1997, pp. 59–60.

a. Plot the treatment means in a graph similar to Figure 10.29. Does the pattern of means suggest interaction between suspense and gender? Explain.

b. The ANOVA F-test for interaction yielded the following results: numerator df = 3, denominator df = 68, F = 4.42, p@value = .007. What can you infer from these results?

c. On the basis of the test carried out in part

b, is the difference between the mean enjoyment levels of males and females the same, regardless of the suspense level of the game?