I am trying to figure out what test is most appropriate to use in my research.
I am conducting a pilot RCT to measure the impact of using an educational tool in teaching students about suicide risk factors, in comparison to the usual conventional teaching methods. Two groups of participants, randomly allocated, but unblinded.
control group only receive the content via lecture, textual powerpoint slides
intervention group, get the same plus the tool
only post-experimental testing, no pretesting (cuz given the age, and educational level, they would have had no formal teaching in this topic).
my independent variable is the presence or absence of the tool
my dependent variables (1) memory retrieval, (2) knowledge transfer, and (3) amount of mental effort.
am thinking of using independent t-test (since i am comparing the two groups' means, and both groups have different people).
but any help would be greatly appreciated
Assuming those dependent variables are continous,
If you would consider those 3 dependent variables seperately then a t-test or a non-parametric one mann whitney U will suffice.
If you would consider the effects of intervention on these 3 dependent variables simultaneously, then you could use MANOVA.
If you need to control for effects of some other variables, you could consider multiple regression.
Dear Mohsen, I agree with Mehmet. The choice between these tests depends upon whether your data is approximately normally distributed. Even if it isn't you might still be able to run a parametric test. For example, the independent samples t-test works with non-normal data provided your group sizes are equal and bigger than 25
Dear Mohsen, I agree with Mehmet and Peter. First of all you should check that whether your data is approximately normally distributed or not. if the data is normally distributed you can use the parametric tests where as if there is violation of normality you can use non parametric tests. In you study you want to see the impact of educational tools. the regression analysis is recommended
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