Re: Sample vs Population Question

> Is there any strong reason to think that a mean age difference of 7.5
> years is likely to be of substantive significance given the age
> distribution of the entire sample?


I hope I understand what you're saying. If I look at all respondents my
mean age is 43.1 and the SD is 13.7 years. That means all my sub-group
means (salary providers and non-providers) are well within 1 SD of the
overall sample mean. So, if that's what you're questions asks, I
suppose I don't have any reason to believe the difference between
thesub-groups makes a substantive difference vis a vis the entire
sample.

Part of me says the law of large numbers is in my favor. And the data
do not suggest some abnormal population here. (My population is a
profession that notably start at moderately high salaries that plateau
after 12 years or so. What my data show is a sample that plateaus in
the 10 to 15 years working range with work experience and degree held
being the biggest factors in salary.) But I'm finishing grad school and
the advisor on my thesis has taken the position that this is a fluke
and that the methodology is questionable.

I like to understand what I'm doing, even if I ultimately wind up
hiring experts to do the very hard stuff.

.

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