RSS Matters

A common use of statistical analysis entails a comparison of groups to one another. The familiar Student’s t-test is used to distinguish whether two groups are significantly different from one another. Starting with a null hypothesis that states there is no difference between the two samples (e.g. ), one proceeds to determine the probability with finding the difference seen in the data if that hypothesis were true. If the probability of the result is low (typically p < .05), then one rejects the null hypothesis that claims no difference, and concludes the groups are statistically different from one another. Alternatively, one may set up a design to minimize Type I error rate (a), and conclude rejection of the null hypothesis if the observed t-statistic is at or beyond the tcritical value (tcv) associated with a chosen error rate and sample size.