

The test statistic is therefore given by:

Where s1 is the standard deviation of the first sample (group) and s2 is the standard deviation of the second sample. If we consider that the two samples have the same variance, the common variance is estimated by: XLSTAT gives the option of using Fisher's F test to test the null hypothesis of equality of the variances of the groups (samples) and to use the result of the test in the subsequent calculations. The use of Student's t test requires a decision to be taken beforehand on whether variances of the samples are to be considered equal or not.
