Paired t-test according to Bland (1994) is used to estimate whether the means of two

related measurements are significantly different from one another. This test is used when two

continuous variables are related because they are collected from the same participant at

different times, from different sites on the same person at the same time or from cases and their

matched controls. In the view of Liu (2018) paired sample t-test compares means where the

two groups are correlated, such as data from the same participants before-and-after, or repeated

measures, matched-pairs, or case-control studies. Tae Kyun Kim, (2015) on his part opined

that paired t-tests are can be categorized as a type of t-test for a single sample because they test

the difference between two paired results. He further indicated that if there is no difference

between the two treatments, the difference in the results would be close to zero; hence, the

difference in the sample means used for a paired t test would be zero.

Hypotheses for a Paired T-Test

Like many statistical procedures, the paired sample t-test has two competing

hypotheses, the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis. The null hypothesis assumes

that the true mean difference between the paired samples is zero. Conversely, the alternative

hypothesis assumes that the true mean difference between the paired samples is not equal to

zero. The alternative hypothesis can take one of several forms depending on the expected

outcome. If the direction of the difference does not matter, a two-tailed hypothesis is used.

Otherwise, an upper-tailed or lower-tailed hypothesis can be used to increase the power of the

test. The null hypothesis remains the same for each type of alternative hypothesis. The paired

sample t-test hypotheses are formally defined below:

 The null hypothesis (𝐻0 ) assumes that the true mean difference (𝜇𝑑 ) is equal to zero.

 The two-tailed alternative hypothesis (𝐻1 ) assumes that 𝜇𝑑 is not equal to zero.
  The upper-tailed alternative hypothesis (𝐻1 ) assumes that 𝜇𝑑 is greater than zero.

 The lower-tailed alternative hypothesis (𝐻1 ) assumes that 𝜇𝑑 is less than zero.

The mathematical representations of the null and alternative hypotheses are defined below:

𝐻0 : 𝜇𝑑 = 0

𝐻1 : 𝜇𝑑 ≠ 0

𝐻1 : 𝜇𝑑 > 0

𝐻1 : 𝜇𝑑 < 0

Assumptions for a Paired T-Test

According to Barton and Peat, (2014) treating paired or matched measurements as independent

samples will artificially inflate the sample size and lead to inaccurate analyses. Hence, as a

parametric procedure, the paired sample t-test makes several assumptions. These assumptions

are as follows:

1. Level of measurement. The paired sample t-test requires the sample data to be numeric

and continuous, as it is based on the normal distribution. Continuous data can take on

any value within a range. The opposite of continuous data is discrete data, which can

only take on a few values.

2. Independence: The observations should be independent of one another.

3. Normality: The difference scores are normally distributed in the population. This

assumption means that the difference between the ratings should be normally

distributed in the population.

4. Absence of outliers: There should be no significant outliers in the differences between

the two related groups.

Test Statistic for a Paired T-Test

The algorithm or test statistic which is a function of the sample on which the statistical decision

will be based using paired t-test follows the student t-distribution with 𝑛 − 1 degrees of

freedom and is given by

(𝑋̅𝑑 − 0)
𝑃𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑡 =
𝑆𝐷
( 𝑑⁄ )
√𝑛

𝑆𝐷
where 𝑋̅𝑑 stands for the mean difference and ( 𝑑⁄ ) is the standard error of the mean
√𝑛

difference.

Decision Rule

There are three criteria which specifies the values of the test statistic for which the null

hypothesis is to be rejected in favour of the alternative hypothesis. These includes:

 P-value (𝑝) and 𝛼: Researchers normally sets the probability of committing a Type 1

error, 𝛼. Decision rule for p-values states that reject the null hypothesis (𝐻0 ) if 𝑝 ≤ 𝛼,

otherwise fail to reject 𝐻0 .

 Critical t-values and test statistic t-value: Since the paired t-test follows the student t-

distribution with 𝑛 − 1 degrees of freedom, an equivalent hypothesis testing approach

for paired t-test is to compare test statistic t-value against critical t-value (table value).

Thus, if −𝑡 ≤ 𝑡𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑡 or 𝑡 ≥ 𝑡𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑡 , reject 𝐻0 , otherwise fail to reject 𝐻0 .

 Confidence Intervals: Since the null hypothesis usually specifies no difference between

group means, 𝐻0 : 𝜇1 − 𝜇2 = 0, this indicates that the population difference between

means should be zero (0.00) if the null is true. Hence, if zero (0.00) lies within the

confidence interval for the mean difference, fail to reject 𝐻0 , otherwise reject 𝐻0 .