You have to pick a test to analysis your data. The question is which test is the right one. Well, it depends on your data and your hypothesis. Usually there are lot of choices, but only one solves your problem best.
Here are some suggestions for selecting test by the types of your variables.
Dependent and Independent Variables
Dependent Variable(DV) is what you are care of. Independent Variable(IV) is what you think may affect your dependent variable. Usually you can control your independent variable, but not depedent variable.
There are two basic types of variables:
Continuous Variables(e.g. height,temprature)
Discrete Variables(e.g. age, size, preferences)
if IV=[0,1],DV=[] then T test] then one-way Anova or ANOCVA
if IV=[0,1,2,],DV=[
if IV1=[0,1,2,], IV2=[0,1,2,], DV=[] then General linear model], IV2[
if IV1=[],…, DV=[], then Linear Regression & Pearson
if IV=[0,1,…], DV=[0,1,…] then χ2
if IV=[~], DV=[0,1,…] then Logistic regression
For more details look at the following pictures:
This picture comes from : SOCR: Statistics Online Computational Resource
References:
Types of Variables
SOCR: Choice of Test
