[R] error bars

[Iasonas Lamprianou]

Dear friends,
I have a statistical question. Sometimes, if I compare boys to girls on a specific variable, the error bars (confidence interval of means) seem to overlap slightly. Still, when I run a t-test, I find statistically significant differences. The rule is clear: if the confidence intervals do not overlap, then there is statistically significant difference. But if they overlap slightly, we have to use a t-test to know for sure if the the two means differ significantly. The point is: is there a rule of thumb to say, for example, "if the overlap is less than 20% of the length of the standard error, then a t-test would give significant results?"

thank you for your time

P.S.1 is there an easy way to plot error bars in R?
P.S.2 an interesting discussion about this - highly recommended to read it - can be found at http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/03/ill_bet_you_dont_understand_er.php 

jason

Dr. Iasonas Lamprianou


Assistant Professor (Educational Research and Evaluation)
Department of Education Sciences
European University-Cyprus
P.O. Box 22006
1516 Nicosia
Cyprus 
Tel.: +357-22-713178
Fax: +357-22-590539


Honorary Research Fellow
Department of Education
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
Tel. 0044  161 275 3485
iasonas.lamprianou at manchester.ac.uk