A CONTROLLED, POWERFUL MULTIPLE-COMPARISON STRATEGY FOR SEVERAL SITUATIONS

The multiple-comparison procedure originally proposed by R. A. Fisher (1935) for the 1-way analysis of variance context has several desirable properties when K (the number of groups) is equal to 3. In this article, the logic of the procedure is described in conjunction with those properties. A discussion follows of how the Fisher procedure can be similarly applied in a number of other K = 3 (and, more generally, 2-degree-of-freedom) hypothesis-testing situations. Finally, the Fisher logic is combined with recent sequential applications of the Bonferroni inequality to illustrate the utility and versatility of that combination for the applied researcher.