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Preliminary Testing For Normality: Is This A Good Practice?, H. J. Keselman, Abdul R. Othman, Rand R. Wilcox

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Normality is a distributional requirement of classical test statistics. In order for the test statistic to provide valid results leading to sound and reliable conclusions this requirement must be satisfied. In the not too distant past, it was claimed that violations of normality would not likely jeopardize scientific findings (See Hsu & Feldt, 1969; Lunney, 1970). Recent revelations suggest otherwise (See e.g., Micceri, 1989; Keselman, Huberty, Lix et al., 1998; Erceg-Hurn, Wilcox, & Keselman, 2013; Wilcox and Keselman, 2003; Wilcox, 2012a, b). Unfortunately the data obtained in psychological investigations rarely, if ever, meet the requirement of normally distributed data (Micceri, …