SPSS Statistics for Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 15

Showing Relationships between Continuous Dependent and Categorical Independent Variables

In This Chapter

Considering hypothesis testing

Working with the Compare Means dialog box

Running the independent-samples t-test procedure

Running the summary independent-samples t-test procedure

In this chapter, we explain how to compare different groups on a continuous outcome variable. For example, we can compare residents of two cities on how much money they spend on rent to determine if there are significant differences.

But before we dive into this topic, we need to tackle another issue: In Chapter 14, you get your feet wet on the idea of hypothesis testing. In this chapter, we extend that discussion.

Hypothesis Testing Revisited

In Chapter 14, we introduce the idea of inferential statistics and mention how they allow us to infer the results from our sample to the population. This concept is important because we want to do research that applies to a larger audience than just the specific group of people we tested.

In Chapter 14, we also mention how hypothesis testing allows researchers ...