A New York Times article titled For Runners Soft Ground Can

Last updated: 12/7/2023

A New York Times article titled For Runners Soft Ground Can Be Hard on the Body considered two perspectives on whether runners should stick to hard surfaces or soft surfaces following an injury One position supported running on soft surfaces to relieve joints that were in recovery from injury The second position supported running on hard surfaces since soft surfaces can be uneven which may make worse those injuries a soft surface was intended to help Suppose we are given sufficient funds to run an experiment to study this topic With no studies to support either position which of the following hypotheses would be appropriate O The first position is more sensible so this should be a one sided test In this case we should form the alternative hypothesis around the second position O The second position makes the more sense so this should be a one sided test In this case we should form the alternative hypothesis around the first position O Because we would be interested in any difference between running on hard and soft surfaces we should use a two sided hypothesis test O Because there is uncertainty we should postpone defining the hypotheses until after we collect data to guide the test