The t-test doesn't require the underlying population to be normal, but it
does require that you have a good sized sample. I assume that, since you
wanted to do a t-test, your data are continuous. For that, you want the
Wilcoxon/Mann-Whitney rank-sum test (help ranksum).
If you don't like that, apparently StatXact has about a million small-sample
exact tests. That way you can really shop around until you find a
statistically significant result :)
Best,
Lee
Lee Sieswerda, Epidemiologist
Thunder Bay District Health Unit
999 Balmoral Street
Thunder Bay, Ontario
Canada P7B 6E7
Tel: +1 (807) 625-5957
Fax: +1 (807) 623-2369
[email protected]
www.tbdhu.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jon Wainwright [SMTP:[email protected]]
> Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 12:20 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: st: When is the t-test appropriate?
>
> Dear Statalist,
>
> I would like to compare the means of two very small random samples (n1=3,
> n2=7). Both samples were drawn from populations of unknown distribution.
> Is
> Stata's ttest appropriate in such a situation, or does it require the
> underlying populations to be normally distributed? If ttest is not
> appropriate, can anyone suggest are more appropriate method for testing
> the
> difference of the means?
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Jon Wainwright
> Austin, Texas
>
> --
>
>
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