u02d1 Factors Affecting Power in the T Test

After completing this week's assigned readings, discuss one of the following questions:
1. How do we decide if the homogeneity of variance assumption is significantly violated? If
the homogeneity of variance assumption is violated, how does this influence the decision
about which version of the t ratio and degrees of freedom to report?
2. What things can a researcher do to try to increase the magnitude of the d effect size?
Suppose that you can increase the d effect size while holding group sizes n1 and n2
constant. How will an increase in d influence the magnitude of t ?
3. Several factors influence statistical power for a one sample t test. How does statistical
power change (increase or decrease) for each of the following changes?
o When d (effect size) increases.
o When N (sample size) increases
o When the alpha level is made smaller.
Explain your answer. For example, if we know ahead of time that the effect size d is very
small, what does this tell us about the N we will need in order to have adequate statistical
power? (We assume that all other terms included in the r ratio remain the same.).

Discussion question #1: How do we decide if the homogeneity of variance assumption is

significantly violated? If the homogeneity of variance assumption is violated, how does this
influence the decision about which version of the t ratio and degrees of freedom to report?
The Levene test is conducted with the independent samples t-test to determine whether the
assumption of homogeneity of variance is supported or violated. As Warner (2008) explains, the
variance of the scores of the outcome variable must be homogeneous across the populations
represented by the samples in a quantitative study. Field (2005) adds that when the sample size
is large, the power of the Levene test increases such that even small differences in group
variances can produce a significant result. A cursory check of the variance ratio can be used in
this case by dividing the highest variance value by the smallest variance value to compute a ratio
value. If the ratio value < 2, then the assumption of homogeneity of variance is supported (Field,
2005).

Conversely when n is small, violation of the assumption of equal variances may lead to an
inflated or deflated risk of a Type I error. Therefore in these situations of small or unequal sample
sizes, the power of the Levene test should be increased by setting = .01, instead of = .05.
With the Levenes test, if the assumption of equal variances is met, variances are assumed to be
same for the samples (s21, s22) and representative of the H0 = 21 = 22 of the population. For
example, with a significance level of = .05, if p > .05 it is assumed there is no difference
between sample variances and the assumption of equal variances is supported. However, if p .
05 it is assumed that a difference in variances exists and the assumption cannot be supported,
therefore the null hypothesis is rejected.
The Levene test can be used to determine which version of the t ratio to report. PASW provides
two versions of the independent samples t test. The pooled variances t test is used when
homogeneity of variances is assumed, and the separate variances t test (or the Welchs t test) is
used when the assumption of homogeneity of variances is violated.
When the assumption of equal variances is violated and the separate variances t test is used, the
degrees of freedom are typically adjusted to provide a smaller df term and a more conservative
test. The separate variances t test will inevitably have a smaller df than the pooled variances t
test (n1 + n2 2). The adjusted df term may even be a decimal number which can be rounded to
the nearest whole number. As a general rule, the larger the variance, the greater the df
adjustment. At this point, performing a non parametric test may be more appropriate and
therefore test scores should be converted into ranking data.
Its also imperative for the researcher to bear in mind that the existence of extreme outliers can
be highly influential in producing non normal distribution shapes and unequal variances.
Preliminary data screening will help determine whether outliers exist and should be deleted prior
to conducting a t test.
Anthony Rhodes
General Psychology PhD

References

Field, A. (2005). Discovering statistics using SPSS (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications. ISBN: 0761944524.
Warner, R.M. (2007). Applied statistics: From bivariate through multivariate techniques.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN: 9780761927723.