Power and the computation of sample size

Abstract

A statistical test will not be able to detect a true difference if the sample size is too small compared with the magnitude of the difference. When designing experiments, the experimenter should try to ensure that a sufficient amount of data are collected to be reasonably sure that a difference of a specified size will be detected. R has methods for doing these calculations in the simple cases of comparing means using one- or two-sample t tests and comparing two proportions.