IMPLEMENTATION OF EXACT AND APPROXIMATE RANDOMIZATION TESTS FOR POLYNOMIAL-GROWTH CURVES

Two stand-alone, menu-driven PC programs, written in GAUSS386i, which compare groups of growth curves in a completely randomized design usin g either (a) exact or (b) approximate randomization tests, are describ ed, illustrated, and made available to interested readers. The program s accomodate missing data in the context of studies planned to have co mmon times of measurement, but where some of the measurement sequences are incomplete. The measurement whose growth is being monitored need not have a Gaussian distribution. We consider the hypothesis that the mean growth curves in G groups are the same; and either compute the ex act P value (exact test), or estimate, and provide a confidence interv al for, the P value (approximate test).