“Survey of Home Buyer Preferences”

was conducted by the National Association of Home Builders to determine the features that home buyers really want. Respondents were to rate each feature desirable as well as if essential.

The following table shows the results.

Feature Desirable Essential Laundry room 40 52 Linen closet 56 32 Exhaust fan 44 42 Dining room 43 36 Walk-in pantry 59 19 Island work area 55 16 Separate shower enclosure 49 20 Temperature control faucets 49 18 Whirlpool tub 46 12 White bathroom fixtures 40 16 Ceramic wall tiles 43 12 Solid-surface countertops 48 7 Den/library 43 11 Wood burning fireplace 39 15 Special use storage 47 6 Source: National Association of Home Builders It is not surprising that the ratings in the “desire”

column of the table are considerably higher than the ratings in the “essentials” column. There is no question about there being a difference in the ratings;

however, an appropriate question is, “Do the items on the list appear in the same order of preference in both columns?”

a. Use the Mann–Whitney U test to test the hypothesis that the items follow essentially the same distribution using   0.05.

b. Use the Spearman rank correlation coefficient to test the hypothesis that the rankings of the items are not correlated using   0.05.

c. State your conclusion.