Does listening to music while studying hinder students’ learning? Two AP® Statistics students designed an experiment to find out. They selected a random sample of 30 students from their medium-sized high school to participate. Each subject was given 10 minutes to memorize two different lists of 20 words, once while listening to music and once in silence. The order of the two word lists was determined at random; so was the order of the treatments. The difference in the number of words recalled (music—silence) was recorded for each subject. Which test should they use to determine if listening to music while studying hinders learning?

The dependent t-test (also known as the paired t-test or paired-samples t-test) compares the two means of associated groups to conclude if there is a statistically significant difference between the two means.

We use the paired t-test if we have two measurements on the same item, person or thing. We should also use this test if we have two items that are being measured with a unique condition.

For instance, an experimenter tests the effect of a medicine on a group of patients before and after giving the doses.

The assumptions made to perform a paired t-test are:

The data are not discreet .
The data i.e., the difference, follows a normal distribution .
Each individual from the whole population has a same possibility of being selected.

In this case, a random sample of 30 students were selected.

Each student was asked to memorize two different lists of 20 words within 10 minutes, once with music and once without music.

The mean difference in the number of words recalled in both the sets (1: with music, 2: without music) was recorded.

The experiment performed was a matched pair experiment and a paired t-test would be used to perform the analysis to determine whether listening to music while studying hinder students’ learning.