Bonferroni's and Sidak's modified tests

Abstract

Results of practical importance had been discarded testing formulated hypothesis with the aid of statistical analysis of experimental data because of the power of the utilized test. This study compares the power of two Bonferroni's Modified and one Sidak's Modified tests with known tests analyzing 1200 simulated experiments. All differences of means were obtained in relation to the mean of the adopted control to guarantee parametrical magnitude of mean differences. Student's test (type I comparisonwise error) and Waller-Duncan's (Bayesian error) showed the highest percentage of significative differences, followed by Duncan's, BM2, SiM, BM1, DunnettU's, SiN, BN, Dunnettu's, SNK's, REGWF's, REGWQ's, Tukey's, Sidak's and Bonferroni's tests. For differences equal to zero, Student's and Waller-Duncan's test exhibit 5% frequency of rejection of the null hypothesis, in accordance the nominal error I adopted (α = 0.05). All other tests had values below 0.05, generally ranging on 0.01 to 0.02 or less. Depending of the number of zero differences and considering the type I experimentwise error I, Student's, Waller-Duncan's and Duncan's tests showed crescent values of errors (> 0.05), proportional to the number of null differences included in the experiment; all other tests exhibit showed of type I experimentwise error < 0.05, most nearing 0.01-0.02 or less. Efficiency of the three "Modified Tests" was close to DunnettU's test, but higher than the other testes of type I experimentwise error nature (MEER).