A researcher in the College of Nursing, University of Florida, hypothesized that women who undergo breast augmentation surgery would gain an increase in self-esteem. The article about the study 18 indicated that for the 84 subjects who volunteered for the study, the scores on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale were 20.7 before the surgery (std. dev. = 6.3) and 24.9 after the surgery (std. dev = 4.6). The author reported that a paired difference significance test had t = 9.8 and a P-value below 0.0001.
a. Were the samples compared dependent samples, or independent samples? Explain.
b. Can you obtain the stated t statistic from the values reported for the means, standard deviation, and sample size? Why or why not?