A Comparison of the Power of the Paired Samples Rank Transform Statistic to that of Wilcoxon’s Signed Ranks Statistic

This study was concerned with the effects of reliability of observations, sample size, magnitudes of treatment effects, and the shape of the sampled population on the relative power of the paired samples rank transform statistic and Wilcoxon’s signed ranks statistic. It was found that factors favoring the Wilcoxon statistic were high reliability of observations, moderate to large sample sizes, and small treatment effects. Factors favoring the rank transform statistic were low reliability of observations, small sample size, and moderate to large treatment effects. It was also noted that the Wilcoxon statistic appeared to maintain the power advantage under normal theory assumptions.