the statistics we have presented all attempt to accomplish this goal by comparing groups of scores using meansand variances as the basic statistical measures. Typically, onevariable is used to define the groups, and a second variable ismeasured to obtain a set of scores within each group. Means andvariances are then computed for the scores, and the sample meansare used to test hypotheses about population means. If the hypothesis test indicates a significant mean difference, then we concludethat there is a relationship between the variables.However, many research situations do not involve