[R] general question on binomial test / sign test

[Greg Snow]

David,

The original poster was not looking at distributions and testing distributions, I referred to the distribution of the p-value to help them understand (in reference to the paper mentioned).

-- 
Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D.
Statistical Data Center
Intermountain Healthcare
greg.snow at imail.org
801.408.8111


> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Winsemius [mailto:dwinsemius at comcast.net]
> Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 12:12 PM
> To: Greg Snow
> Cc: Kay Cecil Cichini; ted.harding at manchester.ac.uk; r-help at r-
> project.org
> Subject: Re: [R] general question on binomial test / sign test
> 
> 
> On Sep 2, 2010, at 2:01 PM, Greg Snow wrote:
> 
> <snipped much good material>
> >
> > The real tricky bit about hypothesis testing is that we compute a
> > single p-value, a single observation from a distribution, and based
> > on that try to decide if the process that produced that observation
> > is a uniform distribution or something else (that may be close to a
> > uniform or very different).
> 
> My friendly addition would be to point the OP in the direction of
> using qqplot() for the examination of distributional properties rather
> than doing any sort of hypothesis testing. There is a learning curve
> for using that tool, but it will pay off in the end.
> 
> --
> David.
> >
> > Hope this helps,
> >
> > --
> > Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D.
> > Statistical Data Center
> > Intermountain Healthcare
> > greg.snow at imail.org
> > 801.408.8111
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-
> >> project.org] On Behalf Of Kay Cecil Cichini
> >> Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 6:40 AM
> >> To: ted.harding at manchester.ac.uk
> >> Cc: r-help at r-project.org
> >> Subject: Re: [R] general question on binomial test / sign test
> >>
> >>
> >> thanks a lot for the elaborations.
> >>
> >> your explanations clearly brought to me that either
> >> binom.test(1,1,0.5,"two-sided") or binom.test(0,1,0.5) giving a
> >> p-value of 1 simply indicate i have abolutely no ensurance to reject
> >> H0.
> >>
> >> considering binom.test(0,1,0.5,alternative="greater") and
> >> binom.test(1,1,0.5,alternative="less") where i get a p-value of 1
> and
> >> 0.5,respectively - am i right in stating that for the first estimate
> >> 0/1 i have no ensurance at all for rejection of H0 and for the
> second
> >> estimate = 1/1 i have same chance for beeing wrong in either
> >> rejecting
> >> or keeping H0.
> >>
> >> many thanks,
> >> kay
> >>
> >>
> 
> David Winsemius, MD
> West Hartford, CT