Power Analysis for Alternative Tests for the Equality of Means.

• Main Author: Li, Haiyin
• Format: Others
• Published: Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University 2011
• Subjects: kurtosis; skewness; t-test; randomization; Bootstrapping; Physical Sciences and Mathematics; Statistical Methodology; Statistics and Probability
• Online Access: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/1304; https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2495&context=etd

The two sample t-test is the test usually taught in introductory statistics courses to test for the equality of means of two populations. However, the t-test is not the only test available to compare the means of two populations. The randomization test is being incorporated into some introductory courses. There is also the bootstrap test. It is also not uncommon to decide the equality of the means based on confidence intervals for the means of these two populations. Are all those methods equally powerful? Can the idea of non-overlapping t confidence intervals be extended to bootstrap confidence intervals? The powers of seven alternative ways of comparing two population means are analyzed using small samples with data coming from distributions with different degrees of skewness and kurtosis. The analysis is done using simulation; programs in GAUSS were especially written for this purpose.