T-Test in SPSS (PASW)

Reference Department
Albert S. Cook Library
Joyce Garczynski jgarczynski@towson.edu 410-704-5168

Background: A t-test is a statistical test that can determine if there is a significant difference between
two groups on a dependent variable. This test compares the average value of the dependent variable
for one group to the average value of the dependent variable for the other group. Thus, a t-test
requires that the independent variable be nominal and consist of only two values and the dependent
variable be a scale-level variable.
Independent-Samples T-Test
This type of t-test is used when the two values of the independent variable are not related, meaning
they do not consist of the same subjects. So for example if you were looking at whether a group of
subjects improved on a test from one time period to another, you would use a pared-samples t-test
instead.

1) Formulate a hypothesis about your variables

What do you think is the relationship between the two variables? In this example, we want to test if
men and women are significantly different in their likelihood to vote. So the independent variable is
gender (represented by gender in the dataset) and the dependent variable is likelihood of voting
(represented by vote in the dataset).

2) Select independent-samples t-test

Click on the Analyze tab at the top of the page Select Compare Means from the list Select
Independent-Samples T Test

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3) Select the variables for the test

1) First select the dependent variable. Click on the

variable name for the dependent variable in the left
hand column so it is highlighted and then click the
arrow next to Test Variable(s) in between the two
sections to move the variable to the test variables
box.
Next select the independent variable. Click on the
variable name for the independent variable in the
left hand column so it is highlighted and then click
the arrow next to Grouping Variable(s) in
between the two sections to move the variable to
the grouping variables box.

1
2

2) Click on the Define Groups button and specify

one group as Group 1 and the other group as
Group 2

3) Click on the OK button.

4) Click on the OK button.

4) Interpret the results

Group Statistics
Gender of
Respondent
COMPUTE scaletalk=(inpersontalk +
phonetalk + newmediatalk + emailtalk)/4

Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

Female

60

3.4500

2.37653

.30681

Male

40

3.4438

2.76046

.43647

dimension1

Levene's Test for

t-test for Equality of Means

Equality of

Variances

1
F
How likely are you to

Equal variances assumed

vote in the 2012

Equal variances not

presidential election?

assumed

4.475

Sig.
.037

df

Sig. (2-

Mean

Std. Error

tailed)

Difference

Difference

-.196

94

.845

-.041

.208

-.186

65.056

.853

-.041

.220

1) Look at the number under Sig. for Levenes Test for Equality of Variances. If it is less than .05, then
you will be looking at the t-value for the Equal variances not assumed row (the bottom row). If the sig is .05
or greater then you use the t-value for the Equal variances assumed row (the top row). Since the Sig. in
our example is .037, we will use the bottom row.
2) Look under the Sig. (2-tailed) column at the appropriate number based on the Levenes Test in step 1. If
the Sig. is less than .05 then the statistic is considered to be significant (meaning that the researcher can be
95% confident that the difference between the means of the two groups is not due to chance).
In this example, since the Sig. value is .853 (which is greater than .05), we can say that there is not a
significant difference between men and women on the likelihood to vote.

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5) Write up the results in APA style

When reporting the results of a correlation within the text of a paper, first write the t-value with the
degrees of freedom (located under the df column in the t-test for Equality of Means section of the
Independent Samples T Test table) in parentheses and then write the significance level. Note that
the exact significance level should be reported unless it is less than .001 (that would be written p <
.001). Also note that otherwise most statistics should be rounded to two decimal places.
For example: No significant difference was found between men and women in terms of their likelihood
to vote in the 2012 presidential election, t(65) = .19, p = .85. On a five-point scale with one being
extremely not likely to vote and five being extremely likely to vote, men averaged 3.44 (SD = 2.76)
and women averaged 3.45 (SD = 2.38).

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