The assumption of normality is primarily concerned with ______.

A) the difference between two sample means
B) the shape of the distribution of the dependent variable
C) how samples are drawn from populations
D) the difference between a sample mean and a population mean

The assumption of normality is an assumption about the shape of the distribution of the dependent variable, which is typically assessed using measures such as skewness and kurtosis. It is important because many statistical analyses, such as t-tests and ANOVA, assume the data are normally distributed. Therefore, violation of the assumption of normality can lead to inaccurate conclusions.