EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY (ACTIVITY 2)

T-test independent

The independent samples t-test is a test that compares two groups on the mean value of a
continuous (i.e., interval or ratio), normally distributed variable. The model assumes that a
difference in the mean score of the dependent variable is found because of the influence of
the independent variable that distinguishes the two groups.

T Test for Independent Samples Solution

Example homework problem:
Twenty participants were given a list of 20 words to process. The 20 participants were
randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions. Half were instructed to count the
number of vowels in each word (shallow processing). Half were instructed to judge
whether the object described by each word would be useful if one were stranded on a
desert island (deep processing). After a brief distractor task, all subjects were given a
surprise free recall task. The number of words correctly recalled was recorded for each
subject. Here are the data:

Shallow Processing: 13 12 11 9 11 13 14 14 14 15
Deep Processing: 12 15 14 14 13 12 15 14 16 17

Did the instructions given to the participants significantly affect their level of recall (alpha
= .05)?

The above problem involves an experiment with two treatment conditions. The goal of
your test is to see if there is significant mean difference between the two treatment
groups.
We will test for a significant mean difference between the treatment groups with a t-test
for independent samples:

The numerator of this formula represents the mean difference between the two
treatment groups. The denominator represents the standard error of the mean
difference. Within the denominator, you will see that we will compute the pooled
variance of our two treatment groups:

Pooled variance is a weighted average of the variance estimates from our two groups. If
you need any help computing the mean and variance for each of your groups, look at
the documentation for the explore procedure. n refers to the sample size for each of our
groups.

Compute test statistic. Compute the mean and variance for each group. You will find
that:

Treatment Group: Shallow Deep

Mean: 12.600 14.200
Variance: 3.378 2.622
n: 10 10

Next, compute the pooled variance:

Finally, compute the value of the t statistic:

Conduct hypothesis test. Our t test will have df equal to the total of our sample sizes
minus 2. In our case, we have 10 participants in each group, so we would have df = n1
+ n2 – 2 = 10 + 10 – 2 = 18.

Alpha was set at .05 and we will conduct a two- tailed test. When you consult your table
of critical values for t, you will find that if our obtained value of t is greater than 2.101,
then we would conclude that the mean difference in recall between our two treatment
conditions is significant.

Since the obtained t (-2.07) is not greater in absolute value than the critical t (2.101), we
would conclude that there is not a significant difference in recall between the two
treatment groups.

The interpretation of the data would be: Accept the null hypothesis.
For more experiential learning, you will solve for the t-value of the data given.

X1 X2 X1-x̄1 (X1-x̄1)2 X2-x̄2 (X2-x̄2)2

8 11
10 15

15 18
15 16

11 18
12 13

18 17
16 18

7 9
14 15