title: Towards a web-based decision support tool for selecting appropriate statistical test in medical and biological sciences.
abstract: Statistical hypothesis testing is an essential component of biological and medical studies for making inferences and estimations from the collected data in the study; however, the misuse of statistical tests is widely common. In order to prevent possible errors in convenient statistical test selection, it is currently possible to consult available test selection algorithms developed for various purposes. However, the lack of an algorithm presenting the most common statistical tests used in biomedical research in a single flowchart causes several problems such as shifting users among the algorithms, poor decision support in test selection and lack of satisfaction of potential users. Herein, we demonstrated a unified flowchart; covers mostly used statistical tests in biomedical domain, to provide decision aid to non-statistician users while choosing the appropriate statistical test for testing their hypothesis. We also discuss some of the findings while we are integrating the flowcharts into each other to develop a single but more comprehensive decision algorithm.
authors.affiliation: Ege University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, İzmir, Turkey.
authors.forename: Aslı
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Suner
authors.affiliation: Dokuz Eylül University, Health Sciences Institute, İzmir, Turkey.
authors.forename: Gökhan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Karakülah
authors.affiliation: Dokuz Eylül University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Radiology, İzmir, Turkey.
authors.forename: Oğuz
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Dicle
mesh_terms: D001699:Biometry / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D020407:Internet; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011381:Programming Languages; D012984:Software; D012985:Software Design