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Kruskal-Wallis H Test using SPSS

Statistics
Introduction
The Kruskal-Wallis H test (sometimes also called the "one-way ANOVA on ranks") is a
rank-based nonparametric test that can be used to determine if there are statistically
significant differences between two or more groups of an independent variable on a
continuous or ordinal dependent variable. It is considered the nonparametric alternative
to the one-way ANOVA, and an extension of the Mann-Whitney U test to allow the
comparison of more than two independent groups.

For example, you could use a Kruskal-Wallis H test to understand whether exam
performance, measured on a continuous scale from 0-100, differed based on test
anxiety levels (i.e., your dependent variable would be "exam performance" and your
independent variable would be "test anxiety level", which has three independent groups:
students with "low", "medium" and "high" test anxiety levels). Alternately, you could use
the Kruskal-Wallis H test to understand whether attitudes towards pay discrimination,
where attitudes are measured on an ordinal scale, differed based on job position (i.e.,
your dependent variable would be "attitudes towards pay discrimination", measured on
a 5-point scale from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree", and your independent
variable would be "job description", which has three independent groups: "shop floor",
"middle management" and "boardroom").

Note: If you wish to take into account the ordinal nature of an independent variable and
have an ordered alternative hypothesis, you could run a Jonckheere-Terpstra test
instead of the Kruskal-Wallis H test.

It is important to realize that the Kruskal-Wallis H test is an omnibus test statistic and

cannot tell you which specific groups of your independent variable are statistically
significantly different from each other; it only tells you that at least two groups were
different. Since you may have three, four, five or more groups in your study design,
determining which of these groups differ from each other is important. You can do this
using a post hoc test (N.B., we discuss post hoc tests later in this guide).

This "quick start" guide shows you how to carry out a Kruskal-Wallis H test using SPSS
Statistics, as well as interpret and report the results from this test. However, before we
introduce you to this procedure, you need to understand the different assumptions that
your data must meet in order for a Kruskal-Wallis H test to give you a valid result. We
discuss these assumptions next.

SPSS Statisticstop ^
Assumptions

When you choose to analyse your data using a Kruskal-Wallis H test, part of the
process involves checking to make sure that the data you want to analyse can actually
be analysed using a Kruskal-Wallis H test. You need to do this because it is only
appropriate to use a Kruskal-Wallis H test if your data "passes" four assumptions that
are required for a Kruskal-Wallis H test to give you a valid result. In practice, checking
for these four assumptions just adds a little bit more time to your analysis, requiring you
to click a few more buttons in SPSS Statistics when performing your analysis, as well as
think a little bit more about your data, but it is not a difficult task.

Before we introduce you to these four assumptions, do not be surprised if, when
analysing your own data using SPSS Statistics, one or more of these assumptions is
violated (i.e., is not met). This is not uncommon when working with real-world data
rather than textbook examples, which often only show you how to carry out a Kruskal-
Wallis H test when everything goes well! However, don’t worry. Even when your data
fails certain assumptions, there is often a solution to overcome this. First, let’s take a
look at these four assumptions:

o Assumption #1: Your dependent variable should be measured at

the ordinal or continuous level (i.e., interval or ratio). Examples of ordinal
variables include Likert scales (e.g., a 7-point scale from "strongly agree"
through to "strongly disagree"), amongst other ways of ranking categories (e.g.,
a 3-pont scale explaining how much a customer liked a product, ranging from
 "Not very much", to "It is OK", to "Yes, a lot"). Examples of continuous
variables include revision time (measured in hours), intelligence (measured
using IQ score), exam performance (measured from 0 to 100), weight
(measured in kg), and so forth. You can learn more about ordinal and
continuous variables in our article: Types of Variable.
o Assumption #2: Your independent variable should consist of two or more
categorical, independent groups. Typically, a Kruskal-Wallis H test is used
when you have three or more categorical, independent groups, but it can be
used for just two groups (i.e., a Mann-Whitney U test is more commonly used
for two groups). Example independent variables that meet this criterion include
ethnicity (e.g., three groups: Caucasian, African American and Hispanic),
physical activity level (e.g., four groups: sedentary, low, moderate and high),
profession (e.g., five groups: surgeon, doctor, nurse, dentist, therapist), and so
forth.
o Assumption #3: You should have independence of observations, which
means that there is no relationship between the observations in each group or
between the groups themselves. For example, there must be different
participants in each group with no participant being in more than one group.
This is more of a study design issue than something you can test for, but it is an
important assumption of the Kruskal-Wallis H test. If your study fails this
assumption, you will need to use another statistical test instead of the Kruskal-
Wallis H test (e.g., a Friedman test). If you are unsure whether your study
meets this assumption, you can use our Statistical Test Selector, which is part
of our enhanced content.

As the Kruskal-Wallis H test does not assume normality in the data and is much less sensitive to
outliers, it can be used when these assumptions have been violated and the use of a one-way
ANOVA is inappropriate. In addition, if your data is ordinal, a one-way ANOVA is
inappropriate, but the Kruskal-Wallis H test is not. However, the Kruskal-Wallis H test does
come with an additional data consideration, Assumption #4, which is discussed below:

o Assumption #4: In order to know how to interpret the results from a Kruskal-
Wallis H test, you have to determine whether the distributions in each group
(i.e., the distribution of scores for each group of the independent variable) have
the same shape (which also means the same variability). To understand what
this means, take a look at the diagram below:
 Copyright 2014. Laerd Statistics

In the diagram on the left above, the distribution of scores for the "Caucasian",
"African American" and "Hispanic" groups have the same shape. On the other
hand, in the diagram on the right above, the distribution of scores for each
group are not identical (i.e., they have different shapes and variabilities).

If your distributions have the same shape, you can use SPSS Statistics to carry
out a Kruskal-Wallis H test to compare the medians of your dependent variable
(e.g., "engagement score") for the different groups of the independent variable
you are interested in (e.g., the groups, Caucasian, African American and
Hispanic, for the independent variable, "ethnicity"). However, if your
distributions have a different shape, you can only use the Kruskal-Wallis H
test to compare mean ranks. Having similar distributions simply allows you to
use medians to represent a shift in location between the groups (as illustrated
in the diagram on the left above). As such, it is very important to check this
assumption or you can end up interpreting your results incorrectly.

You can check assumption #4 using SPSS Statistics. You should also check that your data meets
assumptions #1, #2 and #3, which you can do without using SPSS Statistics. Just remember that
if you do not check assumption #4, you will not know whether you are able to compare medians
or just mean ranks, meaning that you might incorrectly interpret and report the result of the
Kruskal-Wallis H test. This is why we dedicate a number of sections of our enhanced Kruskal-
Wallis H test guide to help you get this right. You can learn more about assumption #4 and what
you will need to interpret in the Assumptions section of our enhanced Kruskal-Wallis H test
guide, which you can access by subscribing to Laerd Statistics.

In the Test Procedure in SPSS Statistics section of this "quick start" guide, we illustrate the SPSS
Statistics procedure to perform a Kruskal-Wallis H test assuming that your distributions are not
the same shape and you have to interpret mean ranks rather than medians. First, we set out the
example we use to explain the Kruskal-Wallis H test procedure in SPSS Statistics.

SPSS Statisticstop ^
Example
A medical researcher has heard anecdotal evidence that certain anti-depressive drugs can have
the positive side-effect of lowering neurological pain in those individuals with chronic,
neurological back pain, when administered in doses lower than those prescribed for depression.
The medical researcher would like to investigate this anecdotal evidence with a study. The
researcher identifies 3 well-known, anti-depressive drugs which might have this positive side
effect, and labels them Drug A, Drug B and Drug C. The researcher then recruits a group of 60
individuals with a similar level of back pain and randomly assigns them to one of three groups –
Drug A, Drug B or Drug C treatment groups – and prescribes the relevant drug for a 4 week
period. At the end of the 4 week period, the researcher asks the participants to rate their back
pain on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 indicating the greatest level of pain. The researcher wants to
compare the levels of pain experienced by the different groups at the end of the drug treatment
period. The researcher runs a Kruskal-Wallis H test to compare this ordinal, dependent measure
( Pain_Score ) between the three drug treatments (i.e., the independent
variable,  Drug_Treatment_Group , is the type of drug with more than two groups).
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SPSS Statisticstop ^
Test Procedure in SPSS Statistics
The eight steps below show you how to analyse your data using the Kruskal-Wallis H test in
SPSS Statistics. At the end of these eight steps, we show you how to interpret the results from
your Kruskal-Wallis H test. If you want to find out where the differences between your groups
lie (i.e., the Kruskal-Wallis H test only tells you whether there was a statistically significant
difference between your groups), you will need to follow up your Kruskal-Wallis H test with a
post hoc test. We also show you how to carry these out a post hoc test using SPSS Statistics in
our enhanced Kruskal-Wallis H test guide, which you can access by subscribing to Laerd
Statistics.

Note: SPSS Statistics has two different procedures that can be used to run a Kruskal-Wallis H
test: a legacy procedure and a 'new' procedure (N.B., we just call it 'new' for ease). The
procedure we set out below is SPSS Statistics' legacy procedure. We show you the legacy
procedure because it can be used for more recent and older versions of SPSS Statistics. However,
it has the disadvantage of not automatically running post hoc tests. The new procedure can be
used for SPSS Statistics versions 18 and above (i.e., up to the current version 26), but not for
older versions (i.e., version 17 and older). However, we show you how to carry out the new
procedure in our enhanced Kruskal-Wallis H test guide because it has the benefit of
automatically running post hoc tests, making the analysis procedure much quicker and easier.
 Click Analyze > Nonparametric Tests > Legacy Dialogs > K Independent
Samples... on the top menu as shown below:

Published with written permission from SPSS Statistics, IBM Corporation.

You will be presented with the "Tests for Several Independent Samples" dialogue box, as
shown below:
 Published with written permission from SPSS Statistics, IBM Corporation.

Note: The Kruskal-Wallis H checkbox in the –Test Type– area should be selected by default, but if

it is not, make sure to check this option. This option instructs SPSS Statistics to run a Kruskal-
Wallis H test on the variables you are going to transfer in the next step of this procedure.

 Transfer the dependent variable,  Pain_Score  , into the Test Variable List: box and the
independent variable,  Drug_Treatment_Group , into the Grouping Variable: box. You can transfer
these variables by either drag-and-dropping each variable into the appropriate boxes or by

highlighting (i.e., clicking on) each variable and using the appropriate   button. You will end
up with a screen similar to the one below:
 Published with written permission from SPSS Statistics, IBM Corporation.

 Click on the   button. You will be presented with the "Several

Independent Samples: Define Range" dialogue box, as shown below:

Note: If the   button is not active (i.e., it looks faded like this,  ),
make sure that the  Drug_Treatment_Group  variable is highlighted in yellow (as shown above in
step 2) by clicking on it. This will activate the   button.

Published with written permission from SPSS Statistics, IBM Corporation.

 Enter "1" into the Minimum: box and "3" into the Maximum box. These values represent the
range of codes you gave the groups of the independent variable,  Drug_Treatment_Group  (i.e.,
Drug A was coded "1" through to Drug C which was coded "3"). You will end up with a screen
similar to below:

Published with written permission from SPSS Statistics, IBM Corporation.

Note: If you had four groups (e.g., Drug A through Drug D) and only wanted to analyse Drug B
through Drug D, you could enter "2" and "4" into the Minimum: and Maximum boxes, respectively
(assuming you ordered the groups numerically).

 Click on the   button and you will be returned to the "Tests for Several
Independent Samples" dialogue box, but now with a completed Grouping Variable: box, as
highlighted below:
 Published with written permission from SPSS Statistics, IBM Corporation.

 Click on the   button. You will be presented with the "Several Independent
Samples: Options" dialogue box, as shown below:

Published with written permission from SPSS Statistics, IBM Corporation.

 Select the Descriptive checkbox if you want descriptives and/or the Quartiles checkbox if
you want medians and quartiles. If you selected the Descriptives option, you will be presented
with the following screen:

Published with written permission from SPSS Statistics, IBM Corporation.

 Click on the   button. You will be returned to the "Tests for Several
Independent Samples" dialogue box.
 Click on the   button. This will generate the results.

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SPSS Statisticstop ^
SPSS Statistics Output for the Kruskal-Wallis H Test
You will be presented with the following output (assuming you did not select
the Descriptive checkbox in the "Several Independent Samples: Options" dialogue box):
 Published with written permission from SPSS Statistics, IBM Corporation.

The mean rank (i.e., the "Mean Rank" column in the Ranks table) of the  Pain_Score  for each
drug treatment group can be used to compare the effect of the different drug treatments. Whether
these drug treatment groups have different pain scores can be assessed using the Test
Statistics table which presents the result of the Kruskal-Wallis H test. That is, the chi-squared
statistic (the "Chi-Square" row), the degrees of freedom (the "df" row) of the test and the
statistical significance of the test (the "Asymp. Sig." row).

SPSS Statisticstop ^
Reporting the Output of the Kruskal-Wallis H Test
Using the data from the two tables above, you could report the result as:

 General

A Kruskal-Wallis H test showed that there was a statistically significant difference in

pain score between the different drug treatments, χ2(2) = 8.520, p = 0.014, with a mean
rank pain score of 35.33 for Drug A, 34.83 for Drug B and 21.35 for Drug C.
In our enhanced Kruskal-Wallis H test guide we show you how to run a Kruskal-Wallis H test
using SPSS Statistics' new nonparametric procedure which includes a post hoc test so that you
can determine where any differences lie between your groups. For example, you can use the post
hoc test to determine whether pain score is statistically significantly different between Drug A
and Drug B. We also show you how to write up your results if you need to report these in a
dissertation/thesis, assignment or research report. We do this using the Harvard and APA styles.
Remember, the distribution of your data will determine whether you can report differences with
respect to medians. In our enhanced guide, not only do we explain how to test for this
assumption, but we also show you how to interpret and report the results whether you pass this
assumption or not. You can learn more about our enhanced content on
our Features: Overview page.

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