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Home Q & A Board Biology-Related Homework Help Environmental and Conservation Biology
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citron2k1 citron2k1
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11 years ago
Why can't a t-test be used to make a quantitative comparison between populations of different years? I understand that a t-test compares the means within the sampled population, but what difference would it make if it were samples from different years vs sample from the same year or study?
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#1
11 years ago
Says who? The t-test assesses whether the means of two groups are statistically different from each other. Those two groups can be different years, year 1 versus year 2.
Biology - The only science where multiplication and division mean the same thing.
citron2k1 Author
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#2
11 years ago
I would agree, but it is a question that my ecology professor wanted us to answer. According to him it cannot be done.
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#3
11 years ago
Then I am not totally sure. I found this response on another website. Let me know what you get from it. I would like to know the exact answer as well.

The student's t-test gives a confidence interval for a parameter such as the mean for a "small" sample from a population with an approximately normal distribution.

If you have samples from different years, you are looking at different populations. Here you would have to compare variances in the populations requiring ANOVA or other statistical measures.
Biology - The only science where multiplication and division mean the same thing.
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