Transcript Chapter 1
CHAPTER 7
COMPARING TWO MEANS
Difference between two groups
7.2. Revision of Experimental Research
• Often in Social sciences we are not just
interested in looking at which variables
covary or predict an outcome. Instead we
want to look at the effect of one variable
another by systematically changing some
aspect of the variable.
• Rather collecting naturally occuring data
as in correlation and regression, we
manipulate one variable to observe ist
effect on the other.
Example: Effect of encouragement on learning
• Group 1: Positive Reinforcement
• Group 2: Negative Reinforcement
Teaching method (Positive or Negative) is
known as the independent variable. It has
two levels
Outcome is the statistical ability: called the
dependent variable.
7.2.1 Two methods of data collection
• Between Group, Between Subject or
Independent Design
• Within subject or repeated measure
design (Dependent Design)
7.2.2. Two types of variation
Repeated Measures Design (Dependent)
Example: Train Monkeys to run Economy
Training Phase 1:
Given Userfriendly computers with press
buttons, which change various
parameters of the economy. Once they
change the parameters, a figure appears
on the screen indicating the economy
growth.
No Feed Back
Training Phase 2: The same monkeys are
given computers.
If the economic growth is good, they get a
banana.
If there was no experimental manipulation (i.e No
bananas), then we would expect the behaviour of hte
monkeys to be the same.
We expect this beacuse other factors i.e age, gender, IQ,
motivation are same for both conditions.
Therefore monkeys who score high in condition 1 should
also score high in condition 2 and vice versa.
But the performance will not be identical. There will be
small differences in performance created by
unknown factors. This variation is called
unsystematic variation.
Independent Design (Different Participants
Example: Train Monkeys to run Economy
Training Phase 1:
5 Monkeys Recieve training without
feedback.
5 Monleys Recieve Training withfeedback.
No Feed Back
If there was no experimental manipulation (i.e No bananas),
then we would still find some variation between
behaviour between the groups because they contain
different monkeys, who vary in their ability, motivation
and IQ etc.
The fctors that were held constant in the repeated measures
design are free to vary in the independent design.
Therefore the unsystematic variation will be bigger than for
repeated measures design,
7.2.2 Two Types of Variation (Continued)
Systematic Variation
The variation due to the experimentor
doing some thing to all of the
participants in one condition but
not in the other condition
UnSystematic Variation
This variation results from random
factors that exist between the
experimental conditions (such as
natural differences in ability)
The role of statistics is to discover how much variation there is in Performance and then
to work out how much of this is systematic and how much is unsystematic.
Repeated Measure Design: Difference between two conditions can be caused by only
two things
•The manipulation that was carried out on the participants
•Any other factor that might affect the way in which a person peroforms from one
time to the next.
Independent Design:
•The manipulation that was carried out on the participants
•Difference between the characteristics of the people allocated to each of the
groups. The second factor inthis case is likely tocreate considerable random
variation both within each condition and between them.
7.3 Error Bar charts
7.3.1. Error Bar graphs for between group designs
SPSS Example: spiderBG.sav
Figure 7.3
7.3.2. Error Bar graphs for repeated measures design
Figure 7.9
7.4 Testing Difference between Means: The T
Test
Examples:
• Does the viewing of an advertisement
leads to more purchase.
Independent means t test : Different participants
Dependent means t test: Same participants
7.4.1 Rationale for the t test
1.
Two samples of data are collected and the sample means calculated. These
means might differ by either a little or a lot.
2.
If the samples come from the same population, then we expect their means to
be roughly equal. Although it is possible for their means to differ by chance
alone, we would expect large differences between sample means to occur very
infrequently. Therefore under the Null Hypotheses we assume that the
experimental manipulation (advertisement) has no effect on the participants,
therefore the sample means are very similiar.
H0 : Mean Sample 1 = Mean Sample 2
3.
We compare the difference sample means that we collected to the difference
between the sample means that we would expect to obtain by chance. We use
the standard error as the gauge of the variability between sample means.
•
•
If std error is small, we expect most samples to have similiar means.
If std error is large, we expect to obtain large differences in sample means by chance
alone.
7.4.1 Rationale for the T Test (Continued)
If the difference between the sample means we have collected is larger
than that what we would expect based on the standard error then
we can assume one of the two things
1.
2.
That sample means in our population fluctuate a lot by chance alone
and we have, by chance collected two samples that are atypical (not
representative) of the population from which they came.
The two samples come from different populations but are typical of
their respective parent population. In this scenario, the difference
between samples represents a genuine difference between the
samples. (Null Hypothesis is incorrect)
As the observed difference between the sample means gets larger, the
more confident we become that the second explaination is correct
7.4.2. Assumptions of the t test
Both independent and dependent tests are parametric tests
• Data are from normally distributed populations
• Data are measure at least at the interval level
The independent t test, because it is used to test different groups of
people also assumes
• Varinaces in these populations are roughly equal (homogeneity of
variance)
• Scores are independent (because they come from different people)
7.5 The Dependent T Test: To Analyse whether differences between group
means are statistically meaningfull.
D D
t
sD
N
The equation compares the mean difference between our samples with
the difference we would expect to find bewteen population means
and then takes in to account the standard error of the differences.
7.5.1 Sampling distributions and the standard error
Sampling distributions have several properties that are important
– If the population is normally distributed then so is the sampling distribution i.e if
the sample size is more than 30, it is always normal
– The mean of the sampling distribution is equal to the mean of the population.
– Standard deviation of a sampling distribution is equal to the std devation of the
population divided by the square root of the sample size.
sD
N
We can extend this idea to differences between sample means
• If you take several pairs of samples from a population and calculate their
means, then you can also calculate the difference between their means.
Look at explaination on page 289
7.5.2 The dependent t test equation explained
If we calculate the difference between each persons score in
each condition and add these differences, we get the total
amount of difference.
If we divide this by no of participants, we get averge difference.
This average difference is D bar and an indicator of
systematic variation due to the experimental effect.
We need to be sure that the observed difference is due to our
experimental manipulation (and not a chance result)
Knowing the mean difference is not useful beacuse it depends
on the scale of measurement so we standardise the value.
We can standardise it by dividing it by the sample std deviation
of the differences.
Std deviation is a measure of how much variation there is
between participants differences scores.
Thus the std deviation of differnces represents the unsystematic
variation.
D D
t
sD
N
Sr.
No
Variation explained by the
model
Variation not explained by
the model
Picture
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Real
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Summe
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Avg Difference (mean)
-3,25
STABWA Std Dev of
differences
16,77
In case we have 12 clones
Sr. No
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Summe
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Summe
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Avg Difference (mean)
12
Avg Difference (mean)
-3,25
STABWA Std Dev of
differences
0
STABWA Std Dev of
differences
16,77
7.5.2 The dependent t test equation explained (continued)
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t
D D
sD
N
Dividing by std deviation is a useful means of standardising the average
difference between conditions.
We are interested in knowing how the difference between sample means
compares, to what we would expect to find had we not imposed an
experimental manipulation.
We can use the properties of the sampling distribution: Instead of dividing
the average differences between conditions by std deviaiton of differnces,
we divide it by std error of differnces.
Dividing by the std error standardises the average differences between
conditions, but also tells us how the difference between the sample means
compares in magnitude to what we would expect by chance alone.
If std error is large, then large differences between samples are more
common (because the distribution of differences is more spread out).
Conversly if the std error is small, then large differences between sample
means are uncommon. (because the distribution of differences is very
narrow and centred around zero).
Therefore if the avg difference between our samples is large and the std
deviation is small, then we can be confident that the difference we
observed in our sample is not by a chance result. So if the difference is not
by chance it must have been caused by the experimental manipulation.
7.5.2 The dependent t test equation explained (continued)
D D
t
sD
N
Variation explained by the
model
Variation not explained by
the model
•
The t statistics is simply the ratio of the systematic varioation in the
experiment to the unsystematic variation .
•
If the experimental manipulation creates and effect, then we expect the
systematic variation to be much greater than the unsystematic variation. i.e t
shall be greater than 1.
•
If the experimental manipulation is unsuccessful then we might expect the
variation caused by individual differences to be much greater than that
caused by the experiment. So t will be less than 1.
•
We can compare the obtained t value against the max value we would
expect to get by chance alone in a t distribution with the same dof.
If the value we obtain exceeds this critical value we can be confident that
this reflects an effect of our independent variable.
•
7.5.2 The dependent t test using SPSS
• Open the file: spiderRM.sav
• Analyse==Compare Means==Paired
Samples T Test
7.6 The Independent T Test
t
X
1 2
X2
estimate _ of _ the _ std _ error
1
t
D D
sD
N
Instead of looking at differences between pairs of scores, we look at the
differences between the overall means of the two samples and compare
them to the differences we would expect to get between the means of
the two populations from which the samples come.
Under the null hypotheses the equation becomes
X
X2
t
estimate _ of _ the _ std _ error
1
X
X2
t
estimate _ of _ the _ std _ error
1
2
s tan dard
2
S
S
Error 1 2
N1 N 2
If we tookl several pairs of samples, the differences between the sample means will be similiar across pairs.
7.6.2 The independent t test using spss
• Open the file spiderBG.sav
• Analyse==Compare Means==independent
Samples T Test
7.8 The T Test as a General Linear Model
Open SpiderBG.Sav and simple linear regression, using group as
predictor and anxiety as the outcome.