GPA vs Hair Color
Is there a difference between those with blonde hair and other colors?
Our study is focused on finding if there is any sufficient evidence supporting the phrase “dumb blondes,” by testing the variables of hair color and GPA. The study was done by sending out 100 samples asking one’s natural hair color and their cummulative GPA. The students selected to be surveyed were randomly selected. A factor we took into consideration was response bias when wording the question to be asked. Instead of just listing it as “blonde or non-blonde,” we had the categories of black, red, brown, and blonde hair to be selected. After getting our surveys back, we then categorized them into blondes and non-blondes only. We were interested in conducting this study to see if blondes really are less intelligent.
We have been curious as to whether or not the stereotype that blonds are less intelligent, is actually true. In order to gain the truth about this idea, we decided to run a hypothesis test based on hair color and GPA. The sample was 100 randomly selected students at North Olmsted High School. However, there were some issues with the sampling. We did not receive a sufficient amount of responses from blond students, in order to assume normalicy you should have at least 30 data points. In our results we only had 10 responses from blond students. Also, many students refused to give out their GPA, despite the fact that they would remain anonymous. This could be a form of response bias in the study. If we were to repeat the study we might change a few things about how we sampled students, to remove bias. We would also increase the number of students that we sampled.
To test if blonds are actually more dumb than people with other hair colors, we did a two sample mean t-test. Our null hypothesis was that the mean GPA for blonds was equal to the mean GPA for non-blonds. The alternative hypothesis was that the mean GPA for blonds was less than the mean GPA for non-blonds. After running the test, our p-value was 0.96. This shows that we should fail to reject the null hypothesis at the 0.05 level of significance since our p-value is greater than alpha. Therefore, there is not sufficient evidence to suggest that the true mean GPA of blonds is less than the true mean GPA of non-blonds. In other words, the study does not support the stereotype that blonds are less intelligent than people with other hair colors.