Choosing a test for comparing independent groups

In the previous article in this series ( Campbell, 2016b ), we discussed the use of hypothesis tests as a way of generalising findings from a sample to a population. In practice, the approach can follow a routine, but as we saw, there was one tricky step: there are so many statistical tests available, so how do we choose an appropriate one for our analysis? In this article, we will look at the most common situation, the comparison of different kinds of variables between independent groups of individuals.