Independent t-test

Research Question: Are there differences in how males and females describe their weight?
Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Gender is a nominal variable and how someone

describes their weight is ordinal.
NOTE: Ordinal data is not normally used in
Independent ttest because it is usually used
for a Dependent t-test. This example is being
used strictly to demonstrate an Independent ttest.

Output

A mean of 3.22 for females indicates that they describe their

weight as being about the right weight to slightly
overweight
A mean of 2.97 for males indicates that they describe their
weight as slightly underweight to about the right weight

1. Look at Levenes Test to determine if

there are significant differences in
variances. The p-value is less than 0.05
so therefore, equal variances cannot be
assumed (look at the bottom row). If the
p-value is greater than 0.05 then equal
variances would be assumed so look at
the top row.

2.

Determine if there are mean differences between

2 groups. Sig (2-tailed) indicates that the p-value is
less than 0.05 and the 95% Confidence Interval
indicates that there is a 95% confidence that the
true population mean difference is between .184
and .301. Zero does not fall between these two
numbers so there is a statistically significant
difference between males and females description
of their weight. If zero did fall between these
numbers then there would not be a statically
significant difference. The null hypothesis should