T

test is a statistical tool for hypothesis testing in which the population variance is unknown. The independent t test is used to test for a difference between two independent group (like males and females) on the means of a continuous variable. For testing the mean must be a appropriate summary measure for the variable to be compared in the two groups.

To test for significant differences between means observed for two independent groups. It is used to compare differences between separate groups. However, this test can also be used to explore differences in naturally occurring groups.

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the game of cricket, recently it was observed that every now and then a team makes a score of 300 or above. A few years back a score of 250 or above was considered a rarity and an astonishing event while now a score of 300-340 is not considered safe anymore. ICC decides to research over the matter.

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this case, they have decided to use the ttest. The data relates to 40 matches played during 1970-2011 that were arbitrally selected and assigned to two separate groups. These groups were as follows-

Groups I No. of Matches Time- Period 20 1970-1990

Groups II 20 2000-2011

The null hypothesis is H0: 1 = 2 The alternative hypothesis is H1: 1 2

Select continuous variables that you want to test from the list. 3) Click on the arrow that will send them to the "Test Variable(s)" box. 2) Select the categorical variable from which you are going to extract the groups for comparison and send it to the "Grouping Variable" box by pressing the appropriate arrow. 4) Click on the "Define Groups" button. You are confronted with a small dialog box asking you for two groups. In this case, I'm using 1 and 2 (males and females). Click Continue when you're done. Then click OK when you're ready to get the output.

5) These are descriptive statistics concerning your variables. 6) This first part is important. You see, there is a possibility for two t-tests to occur here. You have to know which one to use. When comparing groups like this, their variances must be relatively similar for the first t-test to be used. Levene's test checks for this. If the significance for Levene's test is 0.05 or below, then the "Equal Variances Not Assumed" test (the one on the bottom) is used. Otherwise you'll use the "Equal Variances Assumed" test (the one on the top). In this case the significance is 0.287, so we'll be using the "Equal Variances" one. 7) Here's your t statistic. 8) These are the degrees of freedom (df). 9) Here's your significance (two-tailed).

 Levene

Test > 0.05, so the equal variance is assumed for both groups. There is a significant difference between the two groups, this is evident by following reasons1. A low significance value for the t-test( typically less than 0.05) 2. Since the 95% confidenceinterval does not contain zero. 3. 3. The t value is not lying between -2 to +2

The independent sample t-test is invalid when certain critical assumptions are not met. Problem occurs whentest variable is ordinal because in ordinal scales the distances between the values are arbitrary. Though the mean is a valid measure of centre, the distribution of the test variable may be so nonnormal that it makes you suspicious of any test that normality.

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