Student researchers at Hope College conducted an experiment to determine whether there is a difference in memorization ability of students when they take notes on paper using handwriting versus taking notes on a computer. They randomly assigned 20 students to the paper based-note-taking group and 20 students to the computer-based note-taking group. They showed all their subjects a 12-minute video about the sun, asking students to take notes using the method assigned. After the video was over, the notes were collected and the students were given a 10-question quiz on information about the sun given in the video, with the instructor recording the number correct out of 10. The quiz results are found in the file NoteTaking. 

a. Is this an experiment or an observational study? 

b. What is the explanatory variable? Is it categorical or quantitative? 

c. What is the response variable? Is it categorical or quantitative? 

d. Use the Descriptive Statistics applet to make dotplots and boxplots of the data. Give a brief comparison of the two distributions by including measures of center, variability, shape and any unusual observations. 

e. Which group, paper or computer, tended to have higher scores on the quiz? How are you deciding? Does this provide preliminary evidence in favor of the students’ research conjecture?