Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS; Armonk, NY, IBM Corp.) is a statistical software application that allows for researchers to enter and manipulate data and conduct various statistical analyses. Step by step methods for conducting and interpreting over 60 statistical tests are available in Research Engineer. Videos will be coming soon. Click on a link below to gain access to the methods for conducting and interpreting the statistical analysis in SPSS.

Between-subjects statistics are used when comparing independent groups on an outcome. Independent groups means that the groups are "different" or "independent" from each other according to some characteristic. With between-subjects designs, participants can only be part of one group (independence) and only observed once (independence of observations, IOO).

One chooses a between-subjects statistical test based on the following:

1. Number of independent groups being compared (one group, two groups, or three or more groups)

2. Scale of measurement of the outcome (categorical, ordinal, or continuous)

3. Meeting statistical assumptions (independence of observations, normality, and homogeneity of variance)

Here is a list of between-subjects statistical tests and when they are utilized in applied quantitative research:

1. Chi-square Goodness-of-fit - One group, categorical outcome, a priori hypothesis for dispersal of outcome

2. One-sample median test - One group, ordinal outcome, a priori hypothesis for median value

3. One-sample t-test - One group, continuous outcome, meet the assumption of IOO and normality, a priori hypothesis for mean value

4. Chi-square - Two independent groups, categorical outcome, and chi-square assumption (more than five observations in each cell)

5. Fisher's Exact test - Two independent groups, categorical outcome, and when the chi-square assumption is not met

6. Mann-Whitney U - Two independent groups, ordinal outcome, and when the assumption of homogeneity of variance for independent samples t-test is violated

7. Independent samples t-test - Two independent groups, continuous outcome, meet the assumption of IOO, normality (skewness and kurtosis statistics), and homogeneity of variance (also known as homoscedasticity, tested with Levene's test)

8. Unadjusted odds ratio - Three or more independent groups, categorical outcome, chi-square assumption, choose a reference category and compare each independent group to the reference

9. Kruskal-Wallis - Three or more independent groups, ordinal outcome, and when the assumption of homogeneity of variance is violated

10. ANOVA - Three or more independent groups, continuous outcome, meet the assumption of IOO, normality, and homogeneity of variance

As we continue our journey to break through the barriers associated with statistical lexicons, here is another dichotomy of popular statistical terms that are spoken commonly but not always understood by everyone.  

Parametric statistics are used to assess differences and effects for continuous outcomes. These statistical tests include one-sample t-tests, independent samples t-tests, one-way ANOVA, repeated-measures ANOVA, ANCOVA, factorial ANOVA, multiple regression, MANOVA, and MANCOVA. 

Non-parametric statistics are used to assess differences and effects for:

1. Ordinal outcomes - One-sample median tests, Mann-Whitney U, Wilcoxon, Kruskal-Wallis, Friedman's ANOVA, Proportional odds regression

2. Categorical outcomes - Chi-square, Chi-square Goodness-of-fit, odds ratio, relative risk, McNemar's, Cochran's Q, Kaplan-Meier, log-rank test, Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel, Cox regression, logistic regression, multinomial logistic regression

3. Small sample sizes (n < 30) - Smaller sample sizes make it harder to meet the statistical assumptions associated with parametric statistics.  Non-parametric statistics can generate valid statistical inferences in these situations.

4. Violations of statistical assumptions for parametric tests - Normality, Homogeneity of variance, Normality of difference scores

There are terms in statistics that many people do not understand from a practical standpoint. I'm a biostatistical scientist and it took me YEARS to wrap my head around some fundamental aspects of statistical reasoning, much less the lexicon. I would hypothesize that 90% of the statistics reported in the empirical literature as a whole fall between two different categories of statistics, between-subjects and within-subjects. Here is a basic breakdown of the differences in these types of statistical tests:

1. Between-subjects - When you are comparing independent groups on a categorical, ordinal, or continuous outcome variable, you are conducting between-subjects analyses. The "between-" denotes the differences between mutually exclusive groups or levels of a categorical predictor variable. Chi-square, Mann-Whitney U, independent-samples t-tests, odds ratio, Kruskal-Wallis, and one-way ANOVA are all considered between-subjects analyses because of the comparison of independent groups.  

2. Within-subjects - When you are comparing THE SAME GROUP on a categorical, ordinal, or continuous outcome ACROSS TIME OR WITHIN THE SAME OBJECT OF MEASUREMENT MULTIPLE TIMES, then you are conducting within-subjects analyses. The "within-" relates to the differences within the same object of measurement across multiple observations, time, or literally, "within-subjects." Chi-square Goodness-of-fit, Wilcoxon, repeated-measures t-tests, relative risk, Friedman's ANOVA, and repeated-measures ANOVA are within-subjects analyses because the same group or cohort of individuals is measured at several different time-points or observations.