The stats.ini file has two main sections; the format of this file is:

The LSD keyword enables you to choose to run the least significant difference test on column means, and therefore it applies to only the column means test. LSD can be set to true or false, so with the exception of the column means test, LSD should always be set to false.

The [statistics available] section defines the tests that will be offered for selection. Each tstat statement specifies a specific test which will become available in the Statistics dialog box. The keywords for the available tests are: colprop, colmeans, netdiff and pairedpref.

For example, to set the column proportions, column means, and net difference tests for the project, this section looks like this:

These statistical tests assume that the samples being compared are independent of each other. However, in levels data, there is normally a relationship between the lower levels and the higher levels, which means that cases at the lower level are not independent of each other. For example, you would not expect the voting patterns of the members of a household to be totally independent of each other, nor would you expect the various journeys or shopping trips made by an individual to be unrelated to each other. These relationships mean that the underlying assumptions required for the special T statistics are almost never satisfied when you run the tests on lower level data. However, users who are not statistical experts are unlikely to realize this and so you will probably want to prevent them running the tests on lower level data. You do this by including the following line:

If you want your users to be able to run the statistical tests at any level of a hierarchical database, you can remove this line. However, do this only if you are sure that the users have the expertise to be able interpret the tests correctly.

The [statistics options] section defines the default tests and any special statistical options. The Default= line lists the tests, from those specified by the tstat statements, to be automatically selected in the dialog box. Where individual tests are defined here, the ‘Run statistics selected below’ option is also automatically selected.

The Default= statement can also be changed to read one of the following:

Any statements below the Default= line are to specify the default options for specific tests. The options are for setting:

These options must be specified in order and separated by commas.

If you want to set column proportions and column means as default tests, to offer the net difference test for selection, and to set individual options for two of those tests, you could set up the stats.ini file as follows:

Finally, if there is no Default= entry in the stats.ini file, or if no stats.ini file exists, then the default setting in the Statistics dialog box will be ‘Use statistics built into variables’. This is equivalent to the way Quanvert worked prior to version 1.6.