Healing potential of handling museum objects. Does handling a museum object have a positive impact on a sick patient’s well-being? To answer this question, researchers at the University College London collected data from 32 sessions with hospital patients (Museum & Society, November 2009). Each patient’s health status (measured on a 100-point scale) was recorded both before and after handling museum objects such as archaeological artifacts and brass etchings. The data (simulated) are listed in the accompanying table. The Wilcoxon signed rank test was applied to the data with the results shown in the accompanying StatCrunch printout. Health Status Measurements Session Before After Session Before After 1 52 59 17 65 65 2 42 54 18 52 63 3 46 55 19 39 50 4 42 51 20 59 69 5 43 42 21 49 61 6 30 43 22 59 66 7 63 79 23 57 61 8 56 59 24 56 58 9 46 53 25 47 55 10 55 57 26 61 62 11 43 49 27 65 61 12 73 83 28 36 53 13 63 72 29 50 61 14 40 49 30 40 52 15 50 49 31 65 70 16 50 64 32 59 72 Source: Museum and Society, November 2009

a. Use the information in the printout to find the largesample Wilcoxon signed rank test statistic.

b. Does handling a museum object have a positive impact on a sick patient’s well-being? Test using a = .01.