Compare the mean of a dataset with the reference mean in the literature I have a dataset and I want to compare its mean to a reference mean that I found in the literature. How can I consider this reference mean (found in the literature and i don't have the raw dataset) as a reference and compare the mean of my dataset against it? 
what kind of test should I use?
R or SPSS solutions are accepted.
 A: The Analyze > Compare Means > One Sample T Test allows you to compare a mean against a fixed value, which your reference mean would be.
A: The method to do this in SPSS has been described. In R, you would use a one-sample t-test using the command t.test.
Assume that you have five temperature readings around a city: 12.5, 12.3, 12.8, 12.5, and 13.6. You wish to test the hypothesis that the mean temperature for this time and date is not 14.3, as stated in a reference source.
> t.test(c(12.5, 12.3, 12.8, 12.5, 13.6), mu=14.3)

    One Sample t-test

data:  c(12.5, 12.3, 12.8, 12.5, 13.6)
t = -6.8019, df = 4, p-value = 0.002441
alternative hypothesis: true mean is not equal to 14.3
95 percent confidence interval:
 12.10323 13.37677
sample estimates:
mean of x 
    12.74 

The results show that you can reject the null hypothesis.
A: You only need to know the reference mean and the sample size.  Then assuming normality for both your data set and the reference mean you can apply a two-sample t test to the difference of the two means.
