Common tests
On the preceding page, we described the concept of "test".
Below is a short list of some of the most popular tests. The distinction between "parametric" and "non-parametric" tests is adressed here.
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SOME COMMON TESTS |
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TEST |
PURPOSE |
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Parametric |
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t tests |
Testing mean(s) of 1 or 2 normal populations. |
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ANOVA |
Testing equality of means of more than 2 normal populations. |
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Hotelling's T ² test |
Testing equality of means of 2 multinormal populations. |
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Bartlett's test |
Testing equality of variances of more than 2 normal populations. |
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Dunnett's test |
post hoc test for comparing groups to a reference group. |
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Newman-Keuls test |
post hoc test for fair pairwise multiple comparisons. |
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Fisher-Irwin test |
Testing the identity of 2 Bernoulli populations. |
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Non parametric |
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Chi-square tests |
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Goodness of fit of a distribution to a sample. |
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Identity of 2 probability distributions. |
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Independence of two categorical variables. |
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Kolmogorov |
Goodness of fit of a distribution to a sample. |
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Kolmogorov-Smirnov |
Identity of 2 probability distributions. |
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Mann-Whitney |
Identity of 2 probability distributions. |
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Kruskal-Wallis |
Identity of 3 or more probability distributions. |
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Friedman |
Identity of 3 or more probability distributions (matched samples) |
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See also two generic methods for building tests :