Table 5.

Steps required in performing the Wilcoxon signed rank test

Step	Details
1	State the null hypothesis and, in particular, the hypothesized value for comparison
2	Rank all observations in increasing order of magnitude, ignoring their sign. Ignore any observations that are equal to the hypothesized value. If two observations have the same magnitude, regardless of sign, then they are given an average ranking
3	Allocate a sign (+ or -) to each observation according to whether it is greater or less than the hypothesized value (as in the sign test)
4	Calculate:
	R+ = sum of all positive ranks
	R- = sum of all negative ranks
	R = smaller of R+ and R-
5	Calculate an appropriate P value