Hi, I am looking for a normality test in R to see if a vector of data I have can be assumed to be normally distributed and hence used in a linear regression.> help.search("normality test")suggests the Shapiro test, ?shapiro.test. Now maybe I am interpreting things incorrectly (as is usually the case), am I right in assuming that this is a composite test for normality, and hence a high p-value would suggest that the sample is normally distributed? As a test I did shapiro.test(rnorm(4500)) a few times, and achieved very different p-values, so I cannot be sure. I had assumed that a random sample of 4500 would have a very high p-value on all occasions but it appears not, this is interesting. Are there any other tests that people would recommend over this one in the base packages? I assume not as help.search did not suggest any. So am I right about a high p-value suggesting normality? Many thanks for any help. Robin Williams Met Office summer intern - Health Forecasting robin.williams@metoffice.gov.uk [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
On 03/09/2008 10:33 AM, Williams, Robin wrote:> Hi, > I am looking for a normality test in R to see if a vector of data I have > can be assumed to be normally distributed and hence used in a linear > regression.Raw data that is suitable for standard linear regression is normally distributed, but the mean varies from observation to observation. The necessary assumption is that the errors are normally distributed with zero mean, but the data itself also includes the non-random parts of the model. The effect of the varying means is that the data will generally *not* appear to come from a normal distribution if you just throw it all into a vector and look at it. So let's assume you're working with residuals from a linear fit. The residuals should be normally distributed with mean zero, but their variances won't be equal. It may be that in a large dataset this will be enough to get a false declaration of non-normality even with perfectly normal errors. In a small dataset you'll rarely have enough power to detect non-normality. So overall, don't use something like shapiro.test for what you have in mind. Any recent regression text should give advice on model diagnostics that will do a better job.>> help.search("normality test") > suggests the Shapiro test, ?shapiro.test. > Now maybe I am interpreting things incorrectly (as is usually the case), > am I right in assuming that this is a composite test for normality, and > hence a high p-value would suggest that the sample is normally > distributed?A low p-value (e.g. p < 0.05) could suggest there is evidence of non-normality, but p > 0.05 just shows a lack of evidence. In the case where the data is truly normally distributed, you'd expect p to be uniformly distributed between 0 and 1. (I have an article in the current American Statistician suggesting ways to teach p-values to emphasize this; unfortunately, it seems to be a surprise to a lot of people.) Duncan Murdoch As a test I did> shapiro.test(rnorm(4500)) > a few times, and achieved very different p-values, so I cannot be sure. > I had assumed that a random sample of 4500 would have a very high > p-value on all occasions but it appears not, this is interesting. > Are there any other tests that people would recommend over this one in > the base packages? I assume not as help.search did not suggest any. > So am I right about a high p-value suggesting normality? > Many thanks for any help. > > > Robin Williams > Met Office summer intern - Health Forecasting > robin.williams at metoffice.gov.uk > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
What is the distribution of the p-value when the null hypothesis is true? This is an important question that unfortunately tends to get glossed over or left out completely in many courses due to the amount of information that needs to be packed into them. For most appropriate tests, when the null hypothesis is true and all other assumptions are true, the p-value is distributed as uniform(0,1). Hence the probability of a type I error is alpha for any value of alpha. Therefore, when the null is true, the likelihoods of getting a p-value of 0.99, 0.051, 0.049, or 0.0001 are all exactly the same. If you want a high p-value for a normality test, just collect only 1 data point, no matter what it's value is, it is completely consistant with the assumption that it came from some normal distribution (p-value=1). For large sample sizes the important question is not "did this data come from an exact normal distribution?", but rather, "Is the distribution this data came from close enough to normal?". If you really feel the need for a test of normality in large sample sizes, then see this post: http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/Rhelp02a/archive/136160.html Hope this helps, -- Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D. Statistical Data Center Intermountain Healthcare greg.snow at imail.org (801) 408-8111> -----Original Message----- > From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org > [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Williams, Robin > Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 8:34 AM > To: r-help at r-project.org > Subject: [R] Normality test > > Hi, > I am looking for a normality test in R to see if a vector of > data I have can be assumed to be normally distributed and > hence used in a linear regression. > > help.search("normality test") > suggests the Shapiro test, ?shapiro.test. > Now maybe I am interpreting things incorrectly (as is usually > the case), am I right in assuming that this is a composite > test for normality, and hence a high p-value would suggest > that the sample is normally distributed? As a test I did > shapiro.test(rnorm(4500)) > a few times, and achieved very different p-values, so I > cannot be sure. > I had assumed that a random sample of 4500 would have a very > high p-value on all occasions but it appears not, this is interesting. > Are there any other tests that people would recommend over > this one in the base packages? I assume not as help.search > did not suggest any. > So am I right about a high p-value suggesting normality? > Many thanks for any help. > > > Robin Williams > Met Office summer intern - Health Forecasting > robin.williams at metoffice.gov.uk > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >