What statistical analysis should I use?

The following table shows general guidelines for choosing a statistical analysis. We emphasize that
these are general guidelines and should not be construed as hard and fast rules.  Usually your data
could be analyzed in multiple ways, each of which could yield legitimate answers. The table below
covers a number of common analyses and helps you choose among them based on the number of
dependent variables (sometimes referred to as outcome variables), the nature of your independent
variables (sometimes referred to as predictors).  You also want to consider the nature of your
dependent variable, namely whether it is an interval variable, ordinal or categorical variable, and
whether it is normally distributed (see What is the difference between categorical, ordinal and interval
variables? for more information on this).  The table then shows one or more statistical tests commonly
used given these types of variables (but not necessarily the only type of test that could be used) and
links showing how to do such tests using SAS, Stata and SPSS.

Number of Nature of  Nature of How How How

Dependent Independent Dependent Test(s) to to to
Variables Variables Variable(s) SAS Stata SPSS
1 interval & normal one-sample t-test SAS Stata SPSS
ordinal or interval one-sample median SAS Stata SPSS
 0 IVs categorical
(1 population) binomial test SAS Stata SPSS
 (2 categories)
 Chi-square goodness-
categorical SAS Stata SPSS
of-fit
2 independent sample t-
interval & normal SAS Stata SPSS
test

 1 IV with 2 levels   ordinal or interval Wilcoxon-Mann

(independent groups) SAS Stata SPSS
Whitney test
 Chi- square test SAS Stata SPSS
 categorical
Fisher's exact test SAS Stata SPSS
interval & normal one-way ANOVA SAS Stata SPSS
1 IV with 2 or more levels
ordinal or interval Kruskal Wallis SAS Stata SPSS
(independent groups)
categorical Chi- square test SAS Stata SPSS
interval & normal paired t-test  SAS Stata SPSS
1 IV with 2 levels
Wilcoxon signed ranks
(dependent/matched  ordinal or interval SAS Stata SPSS
test 
groups)
 categorical McNemar SAS Stata SPSS
1 IV with 2 or more levels one-way repeated
interval & normal SAS Stata SPSS
(dependent/matched measures ANOVA
groups) ordinal or interval Friedman test SAS Stata SPSS
categorical repeated measures SAS Stata SPSS
logistic regression
 interval & normal factorial ANOVA SAS Stata SPSS
2 or more IVs ordinal or interval ??? ??? ??? ???
(independent groups) factorial 
categorical SAS Stata SPSS
logistic regression
correlation  SAS Stata SPSS
interval & normal
simple linear regression SAS Stata SPSS
1 interval IV  non-parametric
ordinal or interval SAS Stata SPSS
correlation
simple logistic
categorical SAS Stata SPSS
regression
multiple regression SAS Stata SPSS
interval & normal
1 or more interval IVs analysis of covariance SAS Stata SPSS
and/or multiple logistic
1 or more categorical IVs SAS Stata SPSS
categorical regression
discriminant analysis SAS Stata SPSS
1 IV with 2 or more levels
2 or more interval & normal one-way MANOVA SAS Stata SPSS
(independent groups)
multivariate multiple
2 or more 2 or more interval & normal SAS Stata SPSS
linear regression
2 sets of 
0 interval & normal canonical correlation SAS Stata SPSS
2 or more
2 or more 0 interval & normal factor analysis SAS Stata SPSS
Number of Nature of  Nature of How How How
Dependent Independent Dependent Test(s) to to to
Variables Variables Variable(s) SAS Stata SPSS

This page was adapted from Choosing the Correct Statistic developed by James D. Leeper, Ph.D.  We
thank Professor Leeper for permission to adapt and distribute this page from our site.