John also wonders about the variation in assembly times for of the parts ACME Auto Parts. In the past, these times have been distributed normal with mean 185 minutes and standard deviation 8 minutes ( or variance of 64 minutes^2). However, he thinks that due to some recent new hires that this variance has increased. He decided to run a hypothesis test to check this. In a sample of size 49, the sample variance was 77 minutes^2.

Write the null and alternative hypothesis, calculate the test statistic, and obtain the p - value. Address the necessary assumptions and state the conclusions in your own word in a complete sentence.