title: Nonparametric statistical tests for the continuous data: the basic concept and the practical use.
abstract: Conventional statistical tests are usually called parametric tests. Parametric tests are used more frequently than nonparametric tests in many medical articles, because most of the medical researchers are familiar with and the statistical software packages strongly support parametric tests. Parametric tests require important assumption; assumption of normality which means that distribution of sample means is normally distributed. However, parametric test can be misleading when this assumption is not satisfied. In this circumstance, nonparametric tests are the alternative methods available, because they do not required the normality assumption. Nonparametric tests are the statistical methods based on signs and ranks. In this article, we will discuss about the basic concepts and practical use of nonparametric tests for the guide to the proper use.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea.
authors.forename: Francis Sahngun
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-5900-7851
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Nahm
keywords: Data interpretation; Investigative technique; Nonparametric statistics; Statistical data analysis