There are three steps involved in creating the comparison distribution for the independent-samples t test, and those steps are repeated many times.Which of these is the sequence described in the text?
A) randomly select a pair of scores, subtract the second score from the first, and record the difference between scores
B) randomly select a group of scores, calculate their mean, and plot that mean on a distribution
C) randomly select scores and calculate their mean as the group 1 mean, randomly select another group of scores and calculate their mean as the group 2 mean, and subtract the second mean from the first
D) randomly select a score, subtract the mean from the score, and plot the difference

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The three steps involved in creating the comparison distribution for the independent-samples t test are (1) randomly selecting scores and calculating their mean as the group 1 mean, (2) randomly selecting another group of scores and calculating their mean as the group 2 mean, and (3) subtracting the group 2 mean from the group 1 mean to obtain a difference score. This process is repeated many times to create a distribution of difference scores, which is then used to calculate the probability of obtaining the observed difference between the sample means by chance alone. Option A describes the process for creating a distribution for a single sample, not for the independent-samples t test. Option B describes the process for creating a distribution of sample means for one group, not for the independent-samples t test. Option D describes the process for creating a distribution of individual scores around the mean for a single sample, not for the independent-samples t test.

There Are Three Steps Involved in Creating the Comparison Distribution