What statistical test did the researchers use to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in levels of self-esteem between the boys and the girls?

The researchers used a two-tailed Independent Samples t-test to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in levels of self-esteem between the boys and girls. This type of test is used to compare the mean differences between two groups on a continuous variable. The independent samples t-test assumes that both groups have equal variances, which may not be the case in this study as it is possible that there are differences in the variance of self-esteem levels between boys and girls.

To conduct their analysis, they first calculated the mean level of self-esteem for each group, then they compared these means using an independent samples t-test. Assuming that both sets of data were normally distributed (i.e., bell shaped curve), they could calculate a p value to identify whether or not there was a statistically significant difference between them (p<0.05). If the p value turned out to be less than 0.05, then we can conclude that there is indeed a statistically significant difference in self-esteem levels between boys and girls, but if it turns out to be greater than 0.05 then we cannot make any conclusions about their difference since it would suggest that their means are not significantly different from one another at α level 0.05