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Hello again.

Thanks to all those who took the time to help overcome my confusion
regarding the McNemar test.  From the communications I received a few things
emerged.

Practically all of you agreed that the McNemar test should have an
associated test value in association to the p one.  The confusion arises
from the fact that when the sample size is small the distribution is not a
good approximation of the standard distribution and therefore it is unsafe
to base your analysis on an approximation of the chi-square test.   Under
such circumstances the best approach is to use a form of the binomial sign
test which calculates the exact probability of a specific set of binary
results given n trials.

It would appear that SPSS calculates the binomial test when asked to
calculate the McNemar and it actually states this in the data output.
Although, when you put in McNemar as a search term on the SPSS home page the
resulting explanation suggests that the Chi-squared equivalent should be
calculated such that a test statistic value and a the accompanying p-value
should be given.  I will have to seek clarification on this issue from SPSS
themselves.

In addition I appreciated the comments that were made with respect to
experimental design, confidence limits, and appropriate statistical
packages.

Thanks again,

Michael Gormley.



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