STF1103:

Statistic for Biology II

Learning Unit 2
One-sample and Paired Sign
Test
STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Semester II 2012

One Sample Sign Test

The One sample Sign test is the equivalent to the one sample t-test of H 0:
= 0.

When the assumption that the sampling distribution of the population is not normal, but
continuous (i.e. not categorical) and symmetrical about .

Note that under H0: = 0, for such probability distribution x,

Pr( X 0 ) Pr( X 0 )

1
2

Therefore, the probability distribution of S, the number of values x i of X

greater than 0 will be binomial with = (where = probability of
success).
Hence an equivalent null hypothesis of H 0: = 0 is H0:
The equivalent alternative hypothesis H A: < 0 is HA:
or

HA: > 0 is HA:

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

1
2

1
2

1
2

The procedures for the One Sample Sign Test

are:
1) Assign a + or sign to each value, xi of X: + if xi
> 0 , and if xi < 0.
2) Ignore those xi that are equal to 0.
3) The test statistic, S, is the number of + signs in the sample
(S is binomially distributed).
4) The rejection region is obtained from the binomial tables,
1
with n = total number
of + and signs in the sample,

2
and
STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Example of One Sample Sign Test

The breaking strength of a certain kind of rope is tested,
giving the following results ( in appropriate units):
169 + 163 + 165 + 160 189 + 150 - 139 - 172 + 160
148
Test whether these data indicate the mean breaking
strength is more than 160, using = 5 %
1

H : 160
The hypotheses are: 0
2

H A : 160
2

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Example of One Sample Sign Test (continue)

replacing each value xi > 160 with a + and each xi < 160 with a
( ignoring values of xi = 160), yields:
n = number of + and signs = 8
S = number of + signs =5
Under H0, S is binomially distributed with n = 8 and = 1/2, so from
the binomial tables:
Pr (S 5) = Pr (S=5) + (S=6) + Pr(S=7) + Pr(S=8)
= 0.3634
Since = 0.05, the rejection region is S 7, with a true level of
0.035.
Hence we accept (Ho), and conclude that there is no evidence that
the mean breaking strength is more than 160.

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Sample Sign Test (continue)

The easiest of all the non-parametric tests

use to compare sample distributions from two populations that are not independent
(e.g. before-and-after kind of study).

The sign of the difference is obtained by subtracting the score of event

before from the score of after.
The procedure for applying a One Sample Sign Test can be summed
into 7 steps:

Step 1 : State the null and alternative hypothesis.

Step 2 : Decide the level of significance.
Step 3 : Determine and tally the sign of difference between paired observations.
Step 4 : Determine the test statistic and which Test Distribution to use.
Step 5 : Compute the p-value and decision rule.
Step 6 : Decision rule reject or accept Ho.
Step 7 : Conclusion.

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Example
A restaurant is introducing a new recipe of fried chicken. The
marketing department wants to know if the new recipe if
tastier than the original one.
The customers are randomly selected for a test. Each person is
given a piece of original fried chicken to try and rates the taste
on a scale of 1 to 10 (poor to very good).
After drinking a glass of water, the same customer is given a
piece of fried chicken cooked using the new recipe, and asked
to rate the taste using the same scale.

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Taste Rating
Customer

Sign of Difference (before

and after)

Original
(x)

New recipe
(y)

10

10

n = number of relevant observations = number of + and signs (zero is excluded)

= 6+2=8
r = number of fewer signs = 2

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Step 1 :state the null and alternative hypothesis

It can be a two-tailed or one-tailed sign test, which decided the form

of the alternative hypothesis.

In this example we want to know if customers prefer the new recipe.

Therefore, we do a one-tailed test.
H0: p = 0.5
HA: p > 0.5

The null hypothesis in this example is that the new recipe has no effect
on the preference or choice of the customers.

A positive sign indicates a taste improvement or improved customers liking.

A negative sign indicates the opposite.
Here, the probability of getting a taste improvement is p = 0.5 because if there is no
effect from the new recipe, the customers preference, i.e. the number of people
liking and disliking the new recipe would be about the same.

With a right-tailed test, if Ho is true, we would expect the same

number of + and signs.

Therefore, either many + or fewer signs should lead to a rejection of Ho.

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Step 2 & Step 3

Step-2 is very straightforward. The level of significant is
usually at = 0.05.
Step -3 is to determine and tally the sign of difference
between the paired data.
For each data pair, subtract one observation from the second observation,
and record the difference as signs of + or .
In a situation where there is no difference in the rating, a zero is given.
Tally all signs. + = 6, = 2 and no difference or 0 = 2.

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Step 4 : Determine Test Statistic

After tallying all the signs, we determine the test statistic
and which test distribution to use.
Here we designate the number of sign as the test
statistic (because we expect the customers would prefer
the new recipe of fried chicken).
Although non-parametric methods make no restrictive
assumption about the distribution of the population being
sample, we will still need to choose a suitable probability
distribution (i.e. binomial, normal, chi-square, etc) to test
the hypothesis.

For a SMALL sample sign test, we use the binomial probability

distribution.

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Step 5 : Calculate p-value

Finally, we need to calculate the p-value for the test statistic.

Only relevant data or pair observations are used for analysis

Out of the 8 customers that showed different preferences, and if Ho if

true, we would expect 50% or 4 persons indicating positive response
and another 4 dislike the new recipe.

all the zero values are not included.

In this example, only 8 out of 10 customers are relevant (2 customers give no
indication of a difference in their rating). Therefore, n = 8.

However, the sample data revealed only 2 persons show dislike. The question to ask
now is. What is the chance of having at most 2 out of 8 persons indicating
dislike when in fact Ho is true?

To find the answer, we look into the binomial table for n = 8, r = 2 (i.e.
the number of sign, or people dislike the new recipe), and p = 0.5

The probability of getting at most 2 persons is 0.1445

i.e. p(r =0) + P(r = 1) + P(r=2) = 0.0039 + 0.0312 + 0.1094

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Semester II 2009/2010

Step 6 : Decision Rule (reject or accept Ho)

The decision rule to follow in a small sample sign test is:

Do not reject (or accept) Ho if p-value of test statistic >

Reject Ho if p-value of test statistic <

With a p-value of 0.1445, this means if there is TRULY NO

DIFFERENCE in the taste between the original and new recipe, the
chances of getting at most only 2 out of 8 persons (in this example)
reporting dislike is 14.4%.

The p-value in this example is greater than the -value, therefore we

failed to reject Ho.

Step 7 : There is no significant improvement (i.e. customer

choice/preference) of the new recipe over the original one.

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Semester II 2009/2010

Left-tailed or Two-tailed Test

If we are conducting a left-tailed test (i.e. H0: p = 0.5, HA: p
<0.5), the value of r is the number of + sign.
If we are making a two-tailed test (i.e. H0: p = 0.5, HA: p
0.5)
we designate the lesser sum of the two signs as r. When we calculate the pvalue, we double the probability obtained from the binomial table.
For instance, in this example, if we are conducting a two-tailed test, the
sample results are 2 x 0.1445, giving a p-value of 0.2890.

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Extra Notes on One Sample Sign Test

When the total number of + and is n 12, the
sample statistic x (i.e. proportion of plus sign) has a
distribution that is approximately normal with a mean p
and standard deviation
Under null hypothesis, Ho : p = 0.5, we assume that the
population proportion p of + sign is 0.5,. Therefore, the
z-value corresponding to the sample test statistic x is :2R n

where n = total number of + and signs

R = total number of + signs.
STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Paired Sample Sign Test

Just as t-test can be applied to paired data to test whether two normal
populations have the same mean or not.

Paired Sample Sign Test can be used to test the hypothesis that two
symmetric continuous population distributions have the same mean.

The procedure are:(i) Calculate di = xi yi, where xi and yi are the paired data.
(ii) Assign a + or sign to each di.
(iii) the test statistic is S = number of + signs (S is binomial)
(iv) The rejection region is obtained from binomial table, with n = total
number of + and signs in the sample.
STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Example
The number of defective items produced by two production
lines A and B was recorded for 8 days.
Day

172

165

206

184

174

142

156

201

201

179

159

192

177

170

163

182

Assuming that A and B have the same distributions,

determine whether these data indicate that one line produces
more defectives than the other at about 5% level of
significance.
STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Example (continue)
The hypotheses are:
H0 : A = B
HA : A > B
Assigning + or sign to each di,
Day

172

165

206

184

174

142

156

201

201

179

159

192

177

170

163

182

di

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II

Example (continue)
Hence n = 8, and the test statistic is S = 2.

1
2

From the binomial tables, with n = 8, and

P(S 6) = P(S 2) = 0.109 +0.031 + 0.004 = 0.144

The rejection region is S 1 or S 7 with the p-value of

0.144, we fail to reject Ho at = 0.05. Therefore, we conclude
that there is no significant difference between the two
production lines.

STF1103: Statistic for Biology II