articleBioData MiningAug 20, 2025GOLD OA

A simple guide to the use of Student’s t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, Chi-squared test, and Kruskal-Wallis test in biostatistics

University of Toronto · University of Milano-Bicocca · +2 more institutions

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Abstract

In an age when machine learning and artificial intelligence are broadly employed, traditional statistics can still provide insightful information and results quickly and at a low computational cost. Statistics, in fact, offers many useful tools to researchers, including a series of univariate statistical tests that can identify relationships between pairs of numeric samples: Student's t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, Chi-squared test, and Kruskal-Wallis test. These tests generate several outcomes, including probability values (p-values) that can express a numerical quantity which accepts or rejects the null hypothesis, based on a certain threshold used. Although effective, these tests are often misused or employed…

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53
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Authors

3

Topics & keywords

Keywords
  • Test (biology)
  • Biostatistics
  • Null hypothesis
  • Univariate
  • Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance
  • Mann–Whitney U test
  • Statistical hypothesis testing
  • Computer science
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