Types of t-tests

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A t-test is a hypothesis test of the mean of one or two normally distributed populations.
Several types of t-tests exist for different situations, but they all use a test statistic that
follows a t-distribution under the null hypothesis:

Test Purpose Example

1-Sample t Tests whether the mean of a Is the mean height of female college
single population is equal to students greater than 5.5 feet?
a target value

2-Sample t Tests whether the difference Does the mean height of female college
between the means of two students significantly differ from the
independent populations is mean height of male college students?
equal to a target value

Paired t Tests whether the mean of
the differences between
dependent or paired
observations is equal to a
target value
If you measure the weight of male
college students before and after each
subject takes a weight-loss pill, is the
mean weight loss significant enough to
conclude that the pill works?

t-test in Tests whether the values of Are high school SAT test scores
regression coefficients in the regression significant predictors of college GPA?
output equation differ significantly
from zero

An important property of the t-test is its robustness against assumptions of population

normality. In other words, with large samples t-tests are often valid even when the
assumption of normality is violated. This property makes them one of the most useful
procedures for making inferences about population means.

However, with a small sample size and nonnormal and highly skewed distributions, it might
be more appropriate to use nonparametric tests.