| Abstract: | Bayesian alternatives to the sign test are proposed which incorporate the number of ties observed. These alternatives arise from different strategies in dealing with the number of ties. One strategy is incorporating the true proportion of ties into the hypotheses of interest. The Bayesian methods are compared to each other and to the typical sign test in a simulation study. Also, the new methods are compared to another version of the sign test proposed by Coakley and Heise (1996). This new version of the sign test was shown to perform especially well in situations where the probability of observing a tie is very high. Although one of the Bayesian methods appears to perform best overall in the simulation study, its performance is not dominating and the easy to use typical sign test generally performs very well. |
