Radford Neal seemed to utter in
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Tim Witort <trw7atixdotnetcomdotcom> wrote:
>
>>I'm developing a report in an analysis program.
>>This report examines employee salaries - comparing
>>the salaries of men to those of women in a particular
>>job title in a particular company. The goal is to
>>determine if the difference in their mean salaries
>>is statistically significant.
>>
>>I have been directed to the t-test to gather this
>>information. When I look at the t-test, however,
>>it appears to be geared toward *estimating* the
>>difference in the means of a population based on
>>a *sample* of the population. Since I am using
>>the entire population, can I still use the t-test
>>to determine if the difference in the means is
>>statistically significant?
>
> Yes, because the "population" you are presumably interested in is not
> the population of actual current employees, but rather the population
> of possible employees and their salaries that would hypothetically
> result from continued appliation of the company's current employment
> and promotion policies into the indefinite future. Only by making
> inferences about that hypothetical population can you conclude
> anything about the nature of these policies.
>
> Radford Neal
Thank you Radford. That is the clearest description
of the issue I've come across. Looking at it this
way will allow me to perform this analysis with a
clearer conscience.
Again, thanks,
-- TRW
_______________________________________
My e-mail: t r w 7
@ i x . n e t c o m . c o m
_______________________________________
.
.
=================================================================
Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the
problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at:
. http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ .
=================================================================
