You will want to include three main
things about the Paired Samples T-Test when communicating results to others.
You want to tell your reader what
type of analysis you conducted. If you don’t, your results won’t make much
sense to the reader. You also want to tell your reader why this particular
analysis was used. What did your analysis tests for?
You can report data from your own
experiments by using the template below.
“A paired-samples t-test was
conducted to compare (your DV measure) _________ in (IV level / condition 1)
________and (IV level / condition 2)________ conditions.”
If we were reporting data for our
example, we might write a sentence like this.
“A paired-samples t-test was
conducted to compare the number of hours of sleep in caffeine and no
caffeine conditions.”
You want to tell your reader whether
or not there was a significant difference between condition means. You can
report data from your own experiments by using the template below.
“There was a significant (not a
significant) difference in the scores for IV level 1 (M=___, SD=___) and IV
level 2 (M=___, SD=___) conditions; t(__)=___, p = ____”
Let’s start by filing in the Mean
and Standard Deviation for each condition.

Now we’ll finish up by filling in
the values related to the paired T-Test. Here we enter the degrees of
freedom (df), the t-value (t), and the Sig. (2-tailed) value (often referred
to as the p value).

You have a sentence that looks very
scientific but was actually very simple to produce.
“There was a significant difference
in the scores for caffeine (M=5.4, SD=1.14) and no caffeine (M=9.4, SD=1.14)
conditions; t(4)=-5.66, p = 0.005.”
Since it might be hard for someone
to figure out what that sentence means or how it relates to your experiment,
you want to briefly recap in words that people can understand. Try to
imagine trying to explain your results to someone who is not familiar with
science. In one sentence, explain your results in easy to understand
language.
You might write something like this
for our example.
“These results suggest that caffeine
really does have an effect hours slept. Specifically, our results suggest
that when humans consume caffeine, the number of hours they sleep decreases”
You could have also written the
following sentence.
“These results suggest that caffeine
really does have an effect hours slept. Specifically, our results suggest
that when humans consume less caffeine, the number of hours they sleep
increases.”
Both sentences are so much easier to
understand than the scientific one will all of the numbers in it.
When you put the three main
components together, results look something like this.
“A paired-samples t-test was
conducted to compare hours of sleep in caffeine and no caffeine conditions.
There was a significant difference in the scores for caffeine (M=5.4,
SD=1.14) and no caffeine (M=9.4, SD=1.14) conditions; t(4)=-5.66, p = 0.005.
These results suggest that caffeine really does have an hours slept.
Specifically, our results suggest that when humans consume caffeine, the
number of hours they sleep decreases.”
Looking good!
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