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Bug 614746 - ZTEST documentation is wrong
ZTEST documentation is wrong
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: Gnumeric
Classification: Applications
Component: Documentation
1.9.x
Other Linux
: Normal major
: ---
Assigned To: Andreas J. Guelzow
Jody Goldberg
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2010-04-03 15:27 UTC by Jose Rodriguez
Modified: 2010-04-05 18:48 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Jose Rodriguez 2010-04-03 15:27:46 UTC
Hello:

I have detected two problems in Gnumeric  1.9.13.

FIRST: the chi-square distribution  has two tails and both are important. But you provide the user with upper tail values only. Lower tail values are lacking and they cannot be calculated by the user. The same happens with the F distribution. 

SECOND: In the description of the ZTEST you say:


ZTEST: p-value of a 2-tailed z-test for a population mean.

This description is wrong. The correct description must be:

ZTEST: p-value of an upper-tailed z-test for a population mean.

You can get convinced of this is you run a ZTEST with the following data:

Row data: -1, 0, 1.

Expected mean=0.

Population standard deviation = 1.

Because the sample mean and the expected mean coincide and are zero, a 2-tailed z-test must evaluate to 1. But Gnumeric evaluates it to 0.5 meaning that the ZTEST is just with one tail. To conclude that your ZTEST works with the upper tail, run the same experiment but with an expected mean of -1. In that case, the p-value must be positive for the upper trial, such as it happens.

José Rodríguez
Comment 1 Andreas J. Guelzow 2010-04-03 17:33:28 UTC
Both tails of the chi square distribution can easily be calculated with 1-CHIDIST (...) or R.PCHISQ.
Comment 2 Andreas J. Guelzow 2010-04-03 17:41:36 UTC
I thought we had fixed the ztest doc already, but apparently not.
Comment 3 Andreas J. Guelzow 2010-04-05 18:48:32 UTC
This problem has been fixed in the development version. The fix will be available in the next major software release. Thank you for your bug report.