Parametric Tests in MerQur: The Full Family from One-Sample t-Test to MANOVA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53463/merqur.20260445Keywords:
parametric tests, t-test, ANOVA, MANOVA, bootstrapAbstract
Parametric tests are statistical methods that test hypotheses concerning population parameters under the assumption that observations are drawn from a specific parametric distribution family, most commonly the normal distribution. These tests remain among the most frequently employed analytical tools in academic research and, when properly applied, yield the highest statistical power.
This study provides a detailed introduction to eleven analytical procedures available under the Parametric Tests category of the MerQur desktop software. These include the one-sample t-test, independent two-sample t-test, paired t-test, one-way ANOVA, two-way ANOVA, repeated measures ANOVA, MANOVA, ANCOVA, bootstrap confidence intervals, permutation tests, and multiple comparison correction methods. For each analysis, the following aspects are systematically addressed: (i) the hypothesis being tested and the corresponding application context, (ii) the required assumptions (normality, homogeneity of variance, independence of observations, and sphericity), (iii) the input fields and parameter options available in the MerQur interface, (iv) the core statistics and effect size measures reported, and (v) interpretive guidance illustrated through a typical research question.
Bootstrap confidence intervals and permutation tests are included within the same category, as they provide resampling-based alternatives when the assumptions of classical parametric tests are not met. The multiple comparison correction section covers the Bonferroni, Holm, Hochberg, Benjamini-Hochberg (False Discovery Rate control), and Šidák methods, along with a discussion of their appropriate usage conditions.
In this framework, the Parametric Tests module of MerQur offers an integrated graphical interface that accommodates a broad spectrum of analytical designs, ranging from simple group comparisons to multivariate and covariance-adjusted models, while simultaneously incorporating assumption diagnostics and effect size computations.
References
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum.
Delacre, M., Lakens, D., & Leys, C. (2017). Why psychologists should by default use Welch’s t-test instead of Student’s t-test. International Review of Social Psychology, 30(1), 92–101. https://doi.org/10.5334/irsp.82
Efron, B. (1979). Bootstrap methods: Another look at the jackknife. Annals of Statistics, 7(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1214/aos/1176344552
Efron, B., & Tibshirani, R. J. (1993). An introduction to the bootstrap. Chapman & Hall.
Fisher, R. A. (1925). Statistical methods for research workers. Oliver & Boyd.
Greenhouse, S. W., & Geisser, S. (1959). On methods in the analysis of profile data. Psychometrika, 24(2), 95–112. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02289823
Hedges, L. V., & Olkin, I. (1985). Statistical methods for meta-analysis. Academic Press.
Holm, S. (1979). A simple sequentially rejective multiple test procedure. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, 6(2), 65–70.
Huynh, H., & Feldt, L. S. (1976). Estimation of the Box correction for degrees of freedom from sample data in randomized block and split-plot designs. Journal of Educational Statistics, 1(1), 69–82. https://doi.org/10.3102/10769986001001069
Lakens, D. (2013). Calculating and reporting effect sizes to facilitate cumulative science: A practical primer for t-tests and ANOVAs. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 863. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00863
Mauchly, J. W. (1940). Significance test for sphericity of a normal n-variate distribution. Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 11(2), 204–209. https://doi.org/10.1214/aoms/1177731915
Nuijten, M. B., Hartgerink, C. H. J., van Assen, M. A. L. M., Epskamp, S., & Wicherts, J. M. (2016). The prevalence of statistical reporting errors in psychology (1985–2013). Behavior Research Methods, 48(4), 1205–1226. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0664-2
Olejnik, S., & Algina, J. (2003). Generalized eta and omega squared statistics: Measures of effect size for some common research designs. Psychological Methods, 8(4), 434–447. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.8.4.434
Pernet, C. R., Wilcox, R., & Rousselet, G. A. (2013). Robust correlation analyses: False positive and power validation using a new open source matlab toolbox. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 606. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00606
Phipson, B., & Smyth, G. K. (2010). Permutation P-values should never be zero: Calculating exact P-values when permutations are randomly drawn. Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology, 9(1), 39. https://doi.org/10.2202/1544-6115.1585
Pituch, K. A., & Stevens, J. P. (2016). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences (6th ed.). Routledge.
Rice, W. R. (1989). Analyzing tables of statistical tests. Evolution, 43(1), 223–225. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1558-5646.1989.tb04220.x
Šidák, Z. (1967). Rectangular confidence regions for the means of multivariate normal distributions. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 62(318), 626–633. https://doi.org/10.2307/2283989
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2019). Using multivariate statistics (7th ed.). Pearson.
Tukey, J. W. (1949). Comparing individual means in the analysis of variance. Biometrics, 5(2), 99–114. https://doi.org/10.2307/3001913
Welch, B. L. (1947). The generalization of “Student’s” problem when several different population variances are involved. Biometrika, 34(1–2), 28–35. https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/34.1-2.28
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 MerQur

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). Under this license you may:
- Share: Copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
- Adapt: Remix, transform and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercial use.
- Attribution: You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.