Suppose you are planning to conduct a repeated-measures study, where outcomes are measured from the same subject at more than one point in time and the average within-subject effect is calculated using a paired t-test or linear regression. How might you calculate how many subjects need to be tested in order to find an effect? Similar to calculating sample size
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In our two previous post on Cohen’s d and standardized effect size measures [1, 2], we learned why we might want to use such a measure, how to calculate it for two independent groups, and why we should always be mindful of what standardizer (i.e., the denominator in d = effect size / standardizer) is used to calculate Cohen’s d.
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Scientists often plan for studies by calculating how many subjects or units need to be tested in order to find an effect. That is, they plan for a study using statistical power according to principles of hypothesis testing. Sample size calculations are usually required in ethics applications and grant proposals to justify the study. We previously learned how to calculate
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Various tools, scales and techniques are available to researchers to quantify outcome measures. Some of these tools are familiar, like a weight scale to measure weight loss over the course of an exercise program. Others are less familiar and are only understood by those working in the same field. Furthermore, different outcome measures can be calculated from the same data.
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The Conversation recently published a nice piece by Louis and Chapman on common statistical misinterpretations and how they can be avoided. Here is summary of the main points: Problem Reason Solution 1. Assuming small differences are meaningful Most small differences are due to chance, not meaningful differences Ask for the margin of error (ie. half of the 95% CI): if
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My last two posts have shown how to perform an independent t-test in the R programming language and the Python programming language. For those of you who are familiar with statistics, you likely know that an independent t-test is equivalent to performing an one-way analysis of variance on the data. What you may not have realised is that both these
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