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 Independent How How to How to
Dependent Dependent Test(s)
Variables to SAS Stata SPSS
Variables Variable(s)
1 interval & normal one-sample t-test SAS Stata SPSS
one-sample
ordinal or interval SAS Stata SPSS
median
0 IVs (1 population) categorical (2
binomial test SAS Stata SPSS
categories)
Chi-square
categorical SAS Stata SPSS
goodness-of-fit
2 independent
interval & normal SAS Stata SPSS
sample t-test
1 IV with 2 levels Wilcoxon-Mann
ordinal or interval SAS Stata SPSS
(independent groups) 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
ordinal or interval SAS Stata SPSS
(dependent/matched groups) ranks test
categorical McNemar SAS Stata SPSS
one-way repeated
interval & normal SAS Stata SPSS
measures ANOVA
1 IV with 2 or more levels
ordinal or interval Friedman test SAS Stata SPSS
(dependent/matched groups)
repeated measures
categorical SAS Stata SPSS
logistic regression
interval & normal factorial ANOVA SAS Stata SPSS
ordered logistic
2 or more IVs (independent ordinal or interval SAS Stata SPSS
regression
groups)
factorial logistic
categorical SAS Stata SPSS
regression
1 interval IV interval & normal correlation SAS Stata SPSS
interval & normal simple linear SAS Stata SPSS
 regression
non-parametric
ordinal or interval SAS Stata SPSS
correlation
simple logistic
categorical SAS Stata SPSS
regression
multiple regression SAS Stata SPSS
interval &
analysis of
normal SAS Stata SPSS
covariance
1 or more interval IVs and/or
multiple logistic
1 or more categorical IVs SAS Stata SPSS
regression
categorical
discriminant
SAS Stata SPSS
analysis
1 IV with 2 or more levels one-way
interval & normal SAS Stata SPSS
(independent groups) MANOVA
multivariate
2+
2+ interval & normal multiple linear SAS Stata SPSS
regression
0 interval & normal factor analysis SAS Stata SPSS
canonical
2 sets of 2+ 0 interval & normal SAS Stata SPSS
correlation
Number of Nature of
Nature of Independent How How to How to
Dependent Dependent Test(s)
Variables to SAS Stata SPSS
Variables Variable(s)

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.