tests for significance really only have any meaning ... if there is a reference to some larger population (or in your case, two populations) of interest ... the notion of testing to see if there is a "significant" difference between the means of two populations ... is well, not necessary ... IF they are the populations ... then, differences you see are differences that are ... subject of course to measurement error but NOT sampling error

At 11:21 PM 1/19/03 +0000, Eircom wrote:
Greetings,

I'm involved in a childrens' literacy study in which there is a control and
treatment group.
Before any treatment is applied (to the members of the treatment group
only), a number of tests are administered to all children. I would like to
test whether there is a significant difference between the mean score of the
control group and that of the treatment group on each of the tests, but am
not sure which statisitical test to use.

As there is no 'wider population' involved (i.e. it is only the children
involved in the study that I am interested in), it can be said that the
population standard deviation of a particular test score is known.
Therefore, it seems to me that a Z-test should be used to test for a
difference between the mean score (of each group) on each test. I'd be very
grateful if someone could confirm that I'm not barking up the wrong tree
entirely....

Best Wishes,
Don


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