EXPLANATION FOR THE STATISTICAL TOOLS USED

Chi-square test

The chi-square test is one of the simplest and most widely used non parametric tests in statistical
work. It makes no assumptions about the population being sampled. The quality x2 describes the
magnitude of discrepancy between theory and observation, i.e., with the help of x2 test we can
know whether a given discrepancy between theory and observation can be attributed to chance or
whether it results from the inadequacy of the theory to fit the observed facts. If x2 is zero, kit
means that the observed and the expected frequency completely coincide. The greater the value
of x2, the greater would be the discrepancy between observed and expected frequencies.

Chi-square formula and degrees of freedom table

The calculated value of x2 is compared with the table value of x2 for given degrees of freedom at
specified level of significance. If the calculated value of x2 is gretar than the table value, the
difference between theory and observation is considered to be significant, i.e., it could not have
arisen due to fluctuations of simple sampling. On the other hand, if the calculated value of x2 is
less than the table value, the difference between theory and observation is not considered
significant, i.e., it could have arisen due to fluctuations of sampling.

BINOMIAL TEST

Conditions to use:

Use the binomial test when you have dichotomous data – that is, when each individual in the
sample is classified in one of two categories (e.g. category A and category B) and you want to
know if the proportion of individuals falling in each category differs from chance or from some
pre-specified probabilities of falling in to those categories.

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Assumptions:

The normal approximation for the binomial test assumes that the proportion of the time that
individuals are expected to fall in to category A (symbolized by “p”)

Multiplied by the total number of individuals in category A and B combined (symbolized by “n”)
is greater than 10 (i.e., pn>10) and that the proportion of the time that individuals are expected to
fall into category B (symbolized by “q”) multiplied by the total number of individuals is greater
than 10 (i.e., qn>10). If either of these conditions are not met then the normal approximation for
the binomial test should not be used (use the binomial distribution instead).

MEAN

In statistics, mean has two related meanings:

 The arithmetic mean (and is distinguished from the geometric mean or harmonic mean).
 The expected value of a random variable, which is also called the population mean.

It is sometimes stated that the ‘mean’ means average. This is incorrect if “mean” is taken in the
specific sense of “arithmetic mean” as there are different types of averages: the mean, median
and mode. For instance, average house prices almost always use the median value for the
average.

FRIEDMAN TEST

The Friedman test is a non parametric statistical test developed by the U.S. economist Milton
Friedman, similar to the parametric repeated measures ANOVA; it is used to detect differences
in treatments across multiple test attempts. The procedure involves ranking each row (or block)
together, then considering the values of ranks by columns.

Classic examples of use are:

 N wine judges rate k different wines. Are the ratings consistent?

 N welders use k welding torches, and the ensuing welds were rated on quality. Is there
one torch that produced better welds than the others?

The Friedman test is used for two-way repeated measures analysis of variance by ranks. In its
use of ranks it is similar to the Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance by ranks.

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Kruskal-Wallis Test
(Non-parametric independent group comparisons)
Definition: A non-parametric test (distribution-free) used to compare three or more
independent groups of sampled data.

Assumptions: Unlike the parametric independent group ANOVA (one way ANOVA), this
non-parametric test makes no assumptions about the distribution of the data (e.g., normality).

Characteristics: This test is an alternative to the independent group ANOVA, when the
assumption of normality or equality of variance is not met. This, like many non-parametric
tests, uses the ranks of the data rather than their raw values to calculate the statistic. Since this
test does not make a distributional assumption, it is not as powerful as the ANOVA.

Test: The hypotheses for the comparison of two independent groups are:

Ho: The samples come from identical populations

Ha: They samples come from different populations

Notice that the hypothesis makes no assumptions about the distribution of the populations.
These hypotheses are also sometimes written as testing the equality of the central tendency of
the populations.

The test statistic for the Kruskal-Wallis test is H. This value is compared to a table of critical
values for U based on the sample size of each group. If H exceeds the critical value for H at
some significance level (usually 0.05) it means that there is evidence to reject the null
hypothesis in favor of the alternative hypothesis.

Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

Spearman's rank correlation coefficient or (rho) is a non-parametric measure of correlation –
that is, it assesses how well a linear equation describes the relationship between two variables
without making any assumptions about the frequency distribution of the variables. To calculate,
raw scores are converted to ranks. is a special case of the Pearson product-moment correlation
coefficient in which the data are ranks, although a simpler formula is often used in calculation by
hand:

Where:
D = the difference between the ranks of corresponding values of X and Y, and
N = the number of pairs of values.

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