skip to main content
DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: The difference between “equivalent” and “not different”

Abstract

Often, experimenters wish to establish that populations of units can be considered equivalent to each other, in order to leverage improved knowledge about one population for characterizing the new population, or to establish the comparability of items. Equivalence tests have existed for many years, but their use in industry seems to have been largely restricted to biomedical applications, such as for assessing the equivalence of two drugs or protocols. We present the fundamentals of equivalence tests, compare them to traditional two-sample and ANOVA tests that are better suited to establishing differences in populations, and propose the use of a graphical summary to compare p-values across different thresholds of practically important differences.

Authors:
 [1];  [2]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States). Statistical Sciences Group
  2. Arizona State Univ., Phoenix, AZ (United States). School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1224047
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-15-20072
Journal ID: ISSN 0898-2112
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC52-06NA25396
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Quality Engineering
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 2015; Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 0898-2112
Publisher:
American Society for Quality Control
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING; Mathematics

Citation Formats

Anderson-Cook, Christine M., and Borror, Connie M. The difference between “equivalent” and “not different”. United States: N. p., 2015. Web. doi:10.1080/08982112.2015.1079918.
Copy to clipboard
Anderson-Cook, Christine M., & Borror, Connie M. The difference between “equivalent” and “not different”. United States. doi:10.1080/08982112.2015.1079918.
Copy to clipboard
Anderson-Cook, Christine M., and Borror, Connie M. Tue . "The difference between “equivalent” and “not different”". United States. doi:10.1080/08982112.2015.1079918. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1224047.
Copy to clipboard
@article{osti_1224047,
title = {The difference between “equivalent” and “not different”},
author = {Anderson-Cook, Christine M. and Borror, Connie M.},
abstractNote = {Often, experimenters wish to establish that populations of units can be considered equivalent to each other, in order to leverage improved knowledge about one population for characterizing the new population, or to establish the comparability of items. Equivalence tests have existed for many years, but their use in industry seems to have been largely restricted to biomedical applications, such as for assessing the equivalence of two drugs or protocols. We present the fundamentals of equivalence tests, compare them to traditional two-sample and ANOVA tests that are better suited to establishing differences in populations, and propose the use of a graphical summary to compare p-values across different thresholds of practically important differences.},
doi = {10.1080/08982112.2015.1079918},
journal = {Quality Engineering},
number = 3,
volume = 2015,
place = {United States},
year = {2015},
month = {10}
}
Copy to clipboard
Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
DOI:  10.1080/08982112.2015.1079918
Copyright Statement
Other availability
Search WorldCat Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 1 work
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Save / Share:
Export Metadata
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.

Works referenced in this record:

Simultaneous and selective inference: Current successes and future challenges
journal, November 2010

Bioequivalence trials, intersection-union tests and equivalence confidence setsCommentCommentCommentCommentCommentRejoinder
journal, November 1996

  • Berger, Roger L.; Hsu, Jason C.; Hauck, Walter W.
  • Statistical Science, Vol. 11, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1214/ss/1032280304

Design and Analysis of Method Equivalence Studies
journal, December 2009

  • Borman, Phil J.; Chatfield, Marion J.; Damjanov, Ivana
  • Analytical Chemistry, Vol. 81, Issue 24
  • DOI: 10.1021/ac901945f

Beyond the t-Test: Statistical Equivalence Testing
journal, June 2005

  • Limentani, Giselle B.; Ringo, Moira C.; Ye, Feng
  • Analytical Chemistry, Vol. 77, Issue 11
  • DOI: 10.1021/ac053390m

A Method for Determining Equivalence in Industrial Applications
journal, March 2002

    [ × clear filter / sort ]

    Works referencing / citing this record:

    Bayesian probability of agreement for comparing the similarity of response surfaces
    journal, April 2019

      [ × clear filter / sort ]

      Similar records in OSTI.GOV collections: