Conducting the experiment

Now we're ready to frame and perform the experiment. Let's walk through the steps to do that one more time.

Formulating an initial hypothesis

In this case, our hypothesis is that there is a relationship between the per capita gross national income and the rate of burglaries. We could go further and make the hypothesis stronger by specifying that higher GNI correlates to a higher burglary rate, somewhat counter-intuitively.

Stating the null and alternative hypotheses

Given that statement of our working hypothesis, we can now formulate the null and alternative hypotheses.

• H₀: There is no relationship between the per capita gross national income and a country's burglary rate.

• H₁: There is a relationship between the per capita gross national income and the country's burglary rate.

These statements will now guide us through the rest of the process.

Identifying the statistical assumptions in the sample

There are a number of assumptions in this data that we need to be aware of...