Testing Hypotheses for Means Part 1

Africa is often looked at as a country rather than a continent (The Guardian, n.d.). Many Africans have been on the brink about level of satisfaction in their political system. Current level of democracy in African is of interest to many international development researchers. The African citizens’ views about their current political system are also significant. This could be due to the current demographic, environmental, political and social problems concerning the development of the region. It is also safe to say many African regions have currently celebrated 50 years of self-independence, but the undesirable image is still ongoing (The Guardian, n.d.)

           Inthis scenario, I used the One-Sample T test to measure the level of democracy today among regions of Africa. The One-sample T test techniques allow for the tests o single mean variables in relation to explicit constant (Wagner, 2016).  In order to test for a value of quantitative variable (i.e. level of democracy today) against the hypothetical test value, we will employ a quantitative variable of level of democracy and apply conjectured test value. The test makes assumption about the data being normally distributed.  Using the One-sample t-test, SPSS allows for options to insert test variable with a test value. My test variable is the level of democracy today and the test value is 6.

            The one-sample statistics show the number of respondents (N) as 46940. This number represents samples from all the selected regions in Africa. The mean of the sample statistics is 5.52. This shows the average number of citizens’ perception level about current level of democracy. It further tells us whether this level falls between the scales of 1-10. Obviously, 5.52 is below the desired value of 6, on the scale of 1 through 10. However, using data from the 2015 Afrobarometer, we can see the resulted one-sample test to show standard deviation of 2.883. Standard deviation shows level of deviation for an entire group. 2.883 displays the dispersion of a set of data from its mean. It seemed more like the smaller the number, the tightly the dispersion. There is the std. error of mean, which guesstimates the standard deviation of the sample spreading. The degree of freedom is showing 46939 with the t equal to -35.924.

           One sample t-test compare sample of data to a population. If we don’t know the population variance, then we use one-sample t-test. The meaningfulness of our data test mean the variation of statistical significant of the resulted data. In SPSS, we compute one-sample t-test by going to analyze, compare mean, one sample t-test, and then use test variable as the level of democracy today. The test value is 6. Then we hit Ok. Our t observed is -35.924.  To write our t sample appropriately, we will write t( 46939)= -35.924, P= 0.000. If we use the traditionally set P-value of P<0.05, we can find whether perceptions about the present level of democracy statistically differ from a value of 6. In this case, we will conclude that the African Citizen’s perceptions about present stages of democracy statistically differ from a value of 6. Therefore, we will reject the null hypothesis that there is no statistical different in the African citizen’s perception using the scale of 1-10.