In: Statistics and Probability
Before we conduct the independent-measures t-test, which other test must we perform and why?
Before we conduct the independent measures t-test we should perform the "F-test for the Equality of Two Population Variances"
The null hypothesis here is a statement about the population variances (in this case, that the population variances and are equal), and the alternative hypothesis is the complementary hypothesis to the null hypothesis (in this case, that the population variances and are unequal)
The formula for the F-statistic is
This test is done to check whether the two samples come from populations having the same variance or not.
If they come from the population having the same variance then the value of the degrees of freedom of the t-test and the test statistic is calculated in a different manner as compared to when they do not come from populations having the same variance but different variances.
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