Overview

The independent t test and ANOVA (analysis of variance) test were appropriate for conducting
research using a classic experimental model, which involves random assignment of participants to a
control group and at least one other (treatment) group. There will be times when such rigorous designs
are not feasible because of limited resources (e.g., low n , limited staff, lack of facilities, budget
constraints). The paired t test provides an alternative approach that can be used to test the effectiveness
of an implementation using a single-group (pretest/posttest) design that does not require a sizable n .

In cases where the pretest criterion is not satisfied for the paired t test, the Wilcoxon test, which
is conceptually similar to the paired t test, is the better option; this alternative test is explained in the
Wilcoxon test handout.

For more information about the tests, visit the following links:
https://statistics.laerd.com/spss-tutorials/dependent-t-test-using-spss-statistics.php
https://statistics.laerd.com/spss-tutorials/wilcoxon-signed-rank-test-using-spss-statistics.php

PAIRED T TEST
Pretest/Posttest Design
The design associated with the paired t test is typically referred to as a pretest/posttest
design, also known as a simple time-series design or O X O design (O = observation, X =
treatment), see Figure 1. This design consists of one group and three steps.

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 Figure 1

Step 1: Pretest
Begin by gathering a quantitative data, and attach each participant’s name or ID to the score. The score
needs to be a continuous variable. This could be an existing score or a test you administer. This will be the
pretest score, sometimes referred to as the baseline score, indicating the level each participant was at prior to
exposing him or her to the treatment. For the t test processing, it is important that the participant’s name or ID
be included with his or her responses (the pretest score for each participant will need to be paired with his or
her posttest score). Essentially, each subject acts as his or her own control group.

Step 2: Treatment
Execute the treatment (e.g., intervention, change in condition, training).

Step 3: Posttest
Administer the same test that was used in Step 1 (pretest) to the same people and record the participant’s
name or ID with the score.
The paired t test analysis produces three critical pieces of information: (a) the mean pretest score, (b) the
mean posttest score, and (c) the p value. If the p value is less than or equal to the specified α level (.05), this
indicates that there is a statistically significant difference between the pretest score and the posttest score,
suggesting that the treatment had an impact.

Example
A researcher wants to determine the effectiveness of using certified therapy dogs as a treatment for
stress relief. There is only one group of participants, consisting of 64 people who have been identified as
stressed.
The researcher will escort each participant to a comfortable chair in a clean, quiet room and allow the
participant to settle for 10 minutes. Next, the researcher will record the participant’s resting pulse rate; this
will constitute the pretest score.
The certified therapy dog will be brought into the room and introduced to the participant. The
participant will be told the dog’s name, and briefed that he or she may pet or brush the dog, if desired. After
30 minutes with the dog, the researcher will take the participant’s pulse; this will constitute the posttest
score.

What test is appropriate? (based on research study design)

To determine the effectiveness of using certified therapy dogs as a treatment for stress relief, the
resting pulse rates of the participants (who are anxious people) before and after the treatment have to be
compared. Further, there is only one continuous dependent variable which is the resting pulse rate (beats per
minute), and only one independent variable which is the grouping variable – before exposure to the
treatment (30-minute time with the therapy dog) and after exposure to the treatment. Thus, based on
research study design, paired t test is appropriate for the case.
The example involved measuring the resting pulse rates (beats per minute) of the participants
before and after the treatment. The paired t test will reveal whether or not the resting pulse rates of the
participants has improved (i.e. lower) after the treatment. If it does, then the therapy is effective.

Hypotheses
H0: Pet therapy has no effect on the pulse rates of stressed people.
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 H1: Pet therapy reduces the pulse rates of stressed people.
The null hypothesis (H0) is phrased to anticipate that the treatment (30-minute time with a therapy
dog) fails to lower down the resting pulse rates of the anxious participants. It means that there is no change
in the resting pulse rates of the participants, i.e. the mean resting pulse rates before (pretest) and after
(posttest) the treatment are not significantly different – simply put, they are equal, μbefore =μafter .
The alternative hypothesis (H1) states the resting pulse rates has improved (got lower) after the
treatment. That is, the mean resting pulse rate before (pretest) and after (posttest) the treatment are
significantly different, μbefore ≠ μafter .

Data Set
Use the following data set: Example - Paired t Test.sav. The pretest in the data set means the
resting pulse rate before the therapy session while the posttest indicates the resting pulse rate after the
session. (It is critical to study the variable view before you analyze the data.)

Checking for Basic Requirements for Paired t Test

1. There is only one dependent variable – resting pulse rate (beats per minute), and it is continuous. 
2. There is only one independent variable – grouping variable: two related groups – before (pretest) and
after (posttest) the treatment.
3. No significant outliers on the DIFFERENCES of the dependent variable between the two related
groups – the differences on the resting pulse rate before (pretest) and after (posttest) the treatment
should be approximately normally distributed (presented next)
4. Normality of the DIFFERENCES of the dependent variable between the two related groups – the
differences on the resting pulse rate before and after treatment should be approximately normally
distributed (presented next)
Note: The assumptions 3-4 will be assessed using the difference of the “pretest” and “posttest” in the data
set, which should be computed first before checking if the assumptions are met.

Checking for Outliers and Normality

SPSS Procedure:
Part 1 – compute the differences of the dependent variable
(difference = posttest minus pretest)
1. SPSS Syntax: Transform > Compute Variable (a dialogue box appears)
2. In the Compute Variable window, enter difference in the Target Variable box.
3. Enter posttest – pretest in the Numeric Expression panel, see Figure 2. You can type in the
variables posttest and pretest, double-click on them, or use the arrow key .
4. Click on the button. (Notice that this operation created a new variable, difference (Figure
3), which equals the posttest − pretest for each row.)

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 Figure 3

Figure 2

Part 2 – checking for outliers and normality of the differences

(This is the same procedure used as part of the pretest checklist for the independent t test and ANOVA.)
1. SPSS Syntax: Analyze > Descriptive Statistics > Explore (a dialogue box appears)
2. Transfer the variable,  difference, into the Dependent List  box and the independent variable,
‘group’, into the Factor List  box using the arrow button (or drag-and-drop the variables into
the boxes), as shown in Figure 4.
3. Click then tick Outliers (see Figure 5). (We use the default 95% confidence level
which means that the level of significance α is 0.05)
4. Click on the   button.
5. Click then tick Histogram, tick Normality plots with tests (see Figure 6).
6. Click on the   button.
7. Click on the   button. This will generate the output.

Figure 4 Figure 5

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 Figure 6 Figure 7

Checking for Outliers

Figure 7 presents the box plot of the difference on the resting pulse rates of the participants
before (pretest) and after (posttest) the treatment, as part of the SPSS output in Part 1 procedure.
Obviously, there are no outliers in the data distribution. 

Normality Check
In Figure 7, you notice that the box plot also shows that the data distribution of the differences is
approximately normal. You can also look at the histogram of the data distribution on the recent SPSS
output. This can be verified using the result of the normality test.
Table 1 presents the normality tests of the computed variable difference, as part of the SPSS
output in Part 1 procedure. The Shapiro-Wilk test confirmed that, indeed, the difference on the resting
pulse rates of the participants before (pretest) and after (posttest) the treatment follows a normal
distribution as indicated by the p value = 0.418, which is higher than 0.05 level of significance. 

Table 1

Running the Paired T Test

Since all the basic requirements for a paired t test are satisfied, then paired t test can be used to
analyze the data set.

Note: In running the paired t test, the variables to be processed are the paired variables – before
(pretest) and after (posttest), and NOT the computed variable difference, which was used in checking
for non-existence of significant outliers and normality requirements.

SPSS Procedure:
1. SPSS Syntax: Analyze > Compare Means > Paired-Samples T Test

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 2. In the Paired-Samples T Test window, copy the pretest variable from the left panel to the
right panel (under Variable1); next, copy the posttest variable from the left panel to the right
panel (under Variable2) as shown in Figure 8.
3. Click on the   button. This will generate the output.

Figure 8

With reference to Table 2 and Table 3 (as part of the SPSS output in running the paired t test),
since the p value (.011) is less than the specified α level (.05), this suggests that the 1.75-point decrease
in mean pulse rate (from 88.31 to 86.56) is statistically significant. In terms of the hypotheses, we would
reject H0 and not reject H1. This means that the pet therapy is effective in reducing stress (indicated by
resting pulse rate) among anxious individuals.
Note: If we entered posttest under Variable 1 and pretest under Variable 2 in Step 2 when we run the
test, we would have obtained a mean reduction of -1.75. The negative sign simply indicates that the
Variable 1 is smaller than Variable 2, which implies the same result with what we obtained.

Table 2

Table 3

Since there was a statistically significant difference in the test result, we calculate next the effect
size alongside the result of the paired t test.

Effect Size for Paired T Test (Cohen’s d )

The effect size d of paired t test is computed using the following formula:

d= |MD
SD |
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 where M is the mean difference between the two related groups and
SD is the standard deviation of this difference.

An effect size is an attempt to provide a measure of the practical significance of the result.
The importance of the value of Cohen's d  (as reported by Cohen (1988)):

Using the formula, the effect size of the statistical difference we obtained in our example is d
= .33 which means that the practical significance of the statistical significance is small.
1.75
d= =0.33
5.36

(If you are using the latest SPSS version, you can obtain the effect size automatically from the
SPSS output. You can sign up for a trial for the latest version from
https://www.ibm.com/account/reg/ph-en/signup?formid=urx-
19774&fbclid=IwAR0TaxkWD2hEAUVqbVJVMMuTaihADdfVYXAPckzaXSEg_u3erk13wF8v49w

Documenting Results
“A paired t test was used to determine whether there was a statistically significant
mean difference between the resting pulse rates before and after the treatment. In order to
assess the effectiveness of pet therapy for reducing stress, 64 individuals who the research
criteria are sampled and provided a 30-minute session with a certified therapy dog, wherein
they could pet or brush the dog if they wished. Each person’s resting pulse rate before and after
each session was recorded.
There were no outliers in the difference of resting pulse rates before and after the
treatment, as assessed by inspection of the boxplot; and the data was normally distributed, as
assessed by Shapiro-Wilk's test ( p = .418).
There was a reduction of 1.75 (SD = 5.36) beats per minute in the resting pulse rate
from an average of 88.31 (SD = 5.03) beats per minute down to 86.56 (SD = 6.57) and it was
found to be statistically significant (t (63) = 2.612, p = .011, d = .33, α = .05). Simply put, the
pet therapy is effective in reducing stress (indicated by resting pulse rate) among anxious
individuals.”
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Note: The numerical values in the documentation result were extracted from Tables 2-3.
All files including data sets can be downloaded from class drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1L7L4K5frFd0M2RNHSeoXWntnAHdOpIqV?usp=sharing
For SPSS video tutorials on Paired t test, visit the following links:
https://www.statstutor.ac.uk/resources/uploaded/25-interpret-independent-ttest-in-spss.mp4
https://www.statstutor.ac.uk/resources/uploaded/24-independent-ttest-in-spss-2.mp4

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