Refer to the following excerpt from a hypothetical research article that
compared memory test performance between two groups of participants:
those who consumed a caffeinated beverage before the test and those
who consumed a non-caffeinated beverage:
An independent samples t-test was conducted to examine the
difference between experimental conditions on test
performance. The results indicated a significant difference
between participants who consumed the caffeinated beverage
and participants who did not, with participants in the caffeinated
group (M = 7.64, SD = 2.41) performing worse than participants
in the non-caffeinated group (M = 9.81, SD = 3.16), t(97) =
2.14, p < .05.
Write a brief paper explaining what the author means when she says that
the results were statistically significant. In other words, what does it
mean to say that results are statistically significant? Be sure to explain
what a p value is and how it relates to statistical significance.
As a reminder, M stands for mean, SD stands for standard deviation, the
t indicates that this was a t-test, and the p represents the p value. You
can refer to page 353 of your textbook, Discovering Statistics Using IBM
SPSS Statistics, for help interpreting the statistical results listed in the
excerpt, but that may not be necessary
Sample Solution