Question

Explain in detail a “Goodness-of-Fit” test and when and why this test would be used versus any other analysis test.

Answer 1

When we need to check the claim or hypothesis whether the given data follows a specific distribution or not, then we use Chi square test for goodness of fit. We use this test only in the situation when we want to check whether the sample data or observed frequencies follow the similar pattern as the population or not. By using this test, we can find out how the sample data fits with the population under study. We use this test to check whether the pattern of the sample data or observed frequencies fits with the population or not. We can use this test only for goodness of fit of the observed data to a particular population distribution. This test would be use versus other analysis test because this test checks the goodness of fit of the sample data, while other tests do not check the fitness of data. There is another test Chi square test for independence which test the independence between two categorical variables but this test do not check the goodness of fit. We can check the goodness of fit by using some graphical analysis, but this graphical analysis does not provide exact evidence for goodness of fit. So, it is important to use this check for checking proper significance of the data.