Quick Guide
| Research Objective | Common Method |
|---|---|
| Compare two independent groups | t-test / Mann-Whitney U |
| Compare two paired measurements | Paired t-test / Wilcoxon signed-rank |
| Compare three or more groups | ANOVA / Kruskal-Wallis |
| Association between categorical variables | Chi-square / Fisher's exact |
| Correlation | Pearson / Spearman |
| Continuous outcome | Linear regression |
| Binary outcome | Logistic regression |
| Count outcome | Poisson / Negative Binomial regression |
| Time-to-event outcome | Kaplan-Meier / Cox regression |
| Repeated measurements | Mixed-effects model / MMRM |
Before Choosing a Test
- What is my research question?
- What type of outcome variable do I have?
- How many groups are being compared?
- Are observations independent or paired?
- Are measurements repeated over time?
- Do I need to adjust for other variables?
For example, comparing two independent groups may require a t-test, while repeated measurements from the same participants may require a mixed-effects model.
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