You are an analyst for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Institutional Division (i.e. the Texas Prison System).A few days ago the Associate Warden in charge of security at your facility came to you with a problem.He is comparing the total sick leave hours taken by Correctional Officers in each of the three shifts.He is concerned because Officers on the evening shift appear to be more likely to use sick leave and unless this is attended to it could pose a security problem in the prison.All three shifts have about the same number of Correctional Officers so it is not necessary to convert the number of sick leave hours to a rate of sick leave taken per officer.

You are provided a data set that includes two variables - the number of sick leave hours taken by each officer and the shift (days, evenings and nights) each officer is assigned to.Your initial research question is whether the differences in sick leave hours taken between officers on each of the three shifts is statistically significant. To begin this study answer the following questions.

1. What is the null hypothesis?
2. What is the alternative hypothesis?
3. What is the dependent variable (be specific) and at what level (nominal, ordinal or scale) is it measured?
4. What is the independent variable (be specific) and at what level (nominal, ordinal or scale) is it measured?