Imagine the Biology department needs to decide which lab curriculum yields bette
ID: 142946 • Letter: I
Question
Imagine the Biology department needs to decide which lab curriculum yields better student outcomes. Five sections are assigned to curriculum A, and five sections are assigned to curriculum B. All sections are administered a pre- and post-test that measures students' attitudes toward science and knowledge of biology. The department wants to see if students' gains are greater in one curriculum or the other. What statistical test should be done to determine if there is a significant difference? Explain why you chose this test.
Tests to choose from: Chi-Square, T-Test, ANOVA, Logistic Regression, and Correlation/Regression.
Explanation / Answer
Statistical test to determine if there is a significant difference is T-test.
The reason why to choose T-test is as below :
The t-test is any statistical hypothesis test in which the test statistic follows a Student's t-distribution under the null hypothesis.
A t-test is most commonly applied when the test statistic would follow a normal distribution if the value of a scaling term in the test statistic were known. When the scaling term is unknown and is replaced by an estimate based on the data, the test statistics (under certain conditions) follow a Student's tdistribution. The t-test can be used, for example, to determine if two sets of data are significantly different from each other.