Suppose that someone claims that the mean income of two group of individuals is equal. In order to test that claim, a researcher collects two samples and finds that the one group earns $1,448 more on average than the other group. Is that sufficient evidence to reject the claim that the mean income in the two populations is equal?
NO, that is not sufficient evidence to reject the claim that the mean income of the two populations is equal. Just comparing means and seeing that the mean of one group is greater than the other is not enough to determine whether the population mean income for the two groups is different or the same.
To understand this, lets look at the test statistics, which would be :-
Looking at the denominator, this test statistic is highly dependent upon the sample standard deviations for the two groups. So even if the mean difference seems high, if the standard deviations are high enough then the value of the above statistic would be reduced and on further testing, there is a chance that we conclude that the mean income of the populations are the same.
Let me know in comments if anything is not clear. Will reply ASAP. Please do upvote if satisfied.
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