American Board of Surgery Qualifying Exam (ABS QE) Practice Test

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Which test would you use for nominal data that involves less than five subjects in a category?

Chi-square test
ANOVA
Fisher's exact test
t-test

The correct answer is: Fisher's exact test

Fisher's exact test is particularly suitable for analyzing nominal data with small sample sizes, especially when the number of subjects in any category is less than five. This statistical test is designed to determine if there are nonrandom associations between two categorical variables in a contingency table. Unlike the Chi-square test, which relies on large sample sizes and the assumption of expected frequencies of at least five in each category, Fisher's exact test calculates the exact probability of observing the data given the marginal totals, making it more appropriate for smaller samples. In situations where you have very few cases in a category, using a test that requires larger samples, like the Chi-square test, could lead to inaccurate results due to violations of its assumptions. Similarly, ANOVA and the t-test are designed for continuous data rather than nominal data, rendering them unsuitable for this specific type of analysis. Therefore, Fisher's exact test is the most appropriate choice for nominal data when dealing with fewer than five subjects in any category.