Some students do homework with the TV on. Researchers wanted to see if people can work as effectively with distractions as witho
ut them. From a group of student volunteers, researchers randomly assigned half to do a relatively easy crossword puzzle in a quiet room and the other half to do the same crossword puzzle in a room in which a TV was on. Then each volunteer was to do a different relatively easy crossword puzzle under the other condition. Students were timed on how long it took to complete the puzzle and the difference in each student's quiet-room time and TV-room time was recorded. Which test is appropriate to use to determine if students take longer to complete the puzzle in the TV room compared to the quiet room, on average?
The above research is carried out using a set of participants who were used to gather data under two different conditions. When this type of research is performed there is a match between the two conditions based on the subjects used, hence, we can pair the condition with the subject to obtain a matched pair. This sort of test also called the dependent sample t test. Thses type of test is ideal when the data is quantitative and the data obtained from two groups are dependent.
