Mann-Whitney U Test

Mann-Whitney U Test

Introduction

Mann-Whitney U test is used to compare differences between two independent groups when the

dependent variable is either ordinal or continuous, but not normally distributed. For example,

1. you could use the Mann-Whitney U test to understand whether attitudes towards pay

discrimination, where attitudes are measured on an ordinal scale, differ based on gender

(i.e., your dependent variable would be "attitudes towards pay discrimination" and your

independent variable would be "gender", which has two groups: "male" and "female").

2. Alternately, you could use the Mann-Whitney U test to understand whether salaries,

measured on a continuous scale, differed based on educational level (i.e., your dependent

variable would be "salary" and your independent variable would be "educational level",

which has two groups: "high school" and "university"). The Mann-Whitney U test is

often considered the nonparametric alternative to the independent t-test although this is

not always the case

Assumptions

When you choose to analyze your data using a Mann-Whitney U test, part of the process

involves checking to make sure that the data you want to analyze can actually be analyzed using

a Mann-Whitney U test. You need to do this because it is only appropriate to use a Mann-

Whitney U test if your data "passes" four assumptions that are required for a Mann-Whitney U

test to give you a valid result. Unlike the independent-samples t-test, the Mann-Whitney U test

allows you to draw different conclusions about your data depending on the assumptions you

make about your data's distribution.

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• Your dependent variable should be measured at the ordinal or continuous

level.
• Examples of ordinal variablesinclude Likert items (e.g., a 7-point scale
from "strongly agree" through to "strongly disagree"), amongst other ways of
ranking categories (e.g., a 5-point scale explaining how much a customer
Assumption liked a product, ranging from "Not very much" to "Yes, a lot").
#1 • 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.

• Your independent variable should consist of two categorical, independent

groups.
• Example independent variables that meet this criterion include gender (2
Assumption groups: male or female), employment status (2 groups: employed or
#2 unemployed), smoker (2 groups: yes or no), and so forth.

• 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
Assumption than something you can test for, but it is an important assumption of the
#3 Mann-Whitney U test. If your study fails this assumption, you will need to
use another statistical test instead of the Mann-Whitney U test (e.g., a
Wilcoxon signed-rank test).

• A Mann-Whitney U test can be used when your two variables are not
normally distributed.
• However, in order to know how to interpret the results from a Mann-Whitney
U test, you have to determine whether your two distributions (i.e., the
distribution of scores for both groups of the independent variable; for
Assumption example, 'males' and 'females' for the independent variable, 'gender') have
#4 the same shape.
• To understand what this means, take a look at the diagram below:

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Two diagrams above, the distribution of scores for 'males' and 'females' have the same shape.

 In the diagram on the left, you cannot see the distribution of scores for 'males' (illustrated

in blue on the diagram on the right) because the two distributions are identical (i.e., both

distributions are identical, so they are 'on top of each other' in the diagram, with the blue-

color male distribution underneath the red color female distribution).

 However, in the diagram on the right, even though both distributions have the same

shape, they have a different location (i.e., the distribution of one of the groups of the

independent variable has higher or lower values compared to the second distribution, in

our example, females have 'higher' values than males, overall).

Test Procedure in SPSS Statistics

First, we set out the example we use to explain the Mann-Whitney U test procedure in SPSS

Statistics.

Example

The concentration of cholesterol (a type of fat) in the blood is associated with the risk of

developing heart disease, such that higher concentrations of cholesterol indicate a higher level of

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risk, and lower concentrations indicate a lower level of risk. If you lower the concentration of

cholesterol in the blood, your risk for developing heart disease can be reduced. Being overweight

and/or physically inactive increases the concentration of cholesterol in your blood. Both exercise

and weight loss can reduce cholesterol concentration. However, it is not known whether exercise

or weight loss is best for lowering cholesterol concentration. Therefore, a researcher decided to

investigate whether an exercise or weight loss intervention was more effective in lowering

cholesterol levels. To this end, the researcher recruited a random sample of inactive males that

were classified as overweight. This sample was then randomly split into two groups: Group 1

underwent a calorie-controlled diet (i.e., the 'diet' group) and Group 2 undertook an exercise-

training programmer (i.e., the 'exercise' group). In order to determine which treatment

programmer was more effective, cholesterol concentrations were compared between the two

groups at the end of the treatment programmers.

Setup in SPSS Statistics

In SPSS Statistics, we entered the scores for cholesterol concentration, our dependent variable,

under the variable name . Next, we created a grouping variable, called

, which represented our independent variable. Since our independent variable had two

groups “diet' and 'exercise” we gave the diet group a value of "1" and the exercise group a value

of "2". If you do not label your two groups, SPSS Statistics will not be able to distinguish

between them and the Mann-Whitney U test will not run.

Procedure in SPSS

If you read assumption #4 earlier, you'll know that the SPSS Statistics procedure when analyzing

your data using a Mann-Whitney U test is different depending on the shape of the two

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distributions of your independent variable. In our example, where our dependent variable is

cholesterol concentration, , we are referring to the two distributions of the

independent variable, (i.e., the distribution of scores for Group 1 – the 'diet' group –

and Group 2 – the 'exercise' group). In the 10 steps below, we show you how to analyse your

data using a Mann-Whitney U test in SPSS Statistics when these two distributions have

a different shape, and therefore, you have to compare the mean ranks of your dependent

variable rather than medians.

At the end of the 9 steps below, we show you how to interpret the results from this test using

mean ranks.

1. Click Analyze > Nonparametric Tests > Legacy Dialogs > 2 Independent

Samples... on the top menu, as shown below:

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2. You will be presented with the Two-Independent-Samples Tests dialogue box, as

shown below:

3. Transfer the dependent variable , into the Test Variable List: box and

the independent variable, , into the Grouping Variable: box by using

the button or by dragging-and-dropping the variables into the boxes.

Note: Make sure that the “Mann-Whitney U” checkbox is ticked in the >Test Type< area

and the Grouping Variable: box is highlighted in yellow (as seen above). If it is not

highlighted in yellow, simply click your cursor in the Grouping Variable: box to highlight it.

4. Click the button. The button will not be clickable if you have not

highlighted the Grouping Variable: box as instructed in Step 4. You will be presented

with the following screen:

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5. Enter 1 into the Group 1: box and enter 2 into the Group 2: box. Remember that we

labeled the Diet group as 1 and the Exercise group as 2.

Note: If you have more than two groups in your study (e.g., three groups: diet, exercise and

drug groups), but only wanted to compare two (e.g., the diet and drug groups), you could type 1

into the Group 1: box and 3 into the Group 2: box (i.e., if you wished to compare the diet with

drug group).

6. Click the button.

7. If you wish to use this procedure to generate some descriptive statistics, click on

the button and then tick “Descriptive” and “Quartiles” within the

>Statistics< area. You will be presented with the dialogue box below:

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8. Click the button, which will bring you back to the main dialogue box with

the Grouping Variable: box now completed, as shown below:

9. Click the button. This will generate the output for the Mann-Whitney U test.

Output and Interpretation

In the SPSS Statistics output below, we show you how to report the Mann-Whitney U test using

mean ranks. To do this, SPSS Statistics produces three tables of output:

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1. Descriptive

The Descriptive Statistics table looks as follows:

Although we have decided to show you how you can get SPSS Statistics to provide descriptive

statistics for the Mann-Whitney U test, they are not actually very useful. The reason for this is

twofold.

 Firstly, in order to compare the groups, we need the individual group values, not the

amalgamated ones. This table does not provide us with this vital information, so we

cannot compare any possible differences between the exercise and diet groups.

 Secondly, we chose the Mann-Whitney U test because one of the individual groups

(exercise group) was not normally distributed. However, we have not tested to see if the

amalgamation of the two groups results in the larger group being normally distributed.

Therefore, we do not know whether to use the mean and standard deviation or the median

and interquartile range (IQR). For these reasons, we recommend that you ignore this

table.

2. Ranks Table

The Ranks table is the first table that provides information regarding the output of the actual

Mann-Whitney U test. It shows mean rank and sum of ranks for the two groups tested (i.e., the

exercise and diet groups):

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The table above is very useful because it indicates which group can be considered as having the

higher cholesterol concentrations, overall; namely, the group with the highest mean rank. In this

case, the diet group had the highest cholesterol concentrations.

Test Statistics Table

This table shows us the actual significance value of the test. Specifically, the Test

Statistics table provides the test statistic, U statistic, as well as the asymptotic significance (2-

tailed) p-value.

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Conclusion

From this data, it can be concluded that cholesterol concentration in the diet group was

statistically significantly higher than the exercise group (U = 110, p = .014). Depending on the

size of your groups, SPSS Statistics will produce both exact and asymptotic statistical

significance levels. Understanding which one to use is explained in our enhanced guide.

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References

Mann-Whitney U Test using SPSS Statistics. (2018). Retrieved from

https://statistics.laerd.com/spss-tutorials/mann-whitney-u-test-using-spss-statistics.php

SPSS Mann-Whitney Test. (2016). Retrieved from https://www.spss-tutorials.com/spss-mann-

whitney-test-simple-example

How to Perform a Mann-Whitney U Test In SPSS. (2018, July 06). Retrieved from

https://toptipbio.com/perform-mann-whitney-test-spss/

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