Joan Bliss wants to find out if there are gender differences in marital satisfaction. She has 40 sets of spouses complete the 10-item Dyadic Adjustment Scale, which is an interval measure. She used an independent samples t test to compare wives to husbands, and found husbands to be significantly happier t(78) = 6.23, p

Question

Joan Bliss wants to find out if there are gender differences in marital satisfaction. She has 40 sets of spouses complete the 10-item Dyadic Adjustment Scale, which is an interval measure. She used an independent samples t test to compare wives to husbands, and found husbands to be significantly happier t(78) = 6.23, p < .001. What did Dr. Bliss do wrong here?
A) One shouldn't test for gender differences; it's politically incorrect
B) Dr. Bliss should have used an F test because she had a nondirectional hypothesis
C) She should have used a Wilcoxon matched-pairs test because the dependent variable was an interval measure
D) Dr. Bliss used an independent samples t test with groups who are dependent
E) She should have done a randomized experiment to examine gender differences

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Dr. Bliss used an independent samples t test, which assumes that the groups being compared are independent. However, in this case, the spouses are not independent from each other because their scores are likely to be related. A more appropriate test for dependent groups would be a paired samples t test or a repeated measures ANOVA.

Joan Bliss Wants to Find Out If There Are Gender