Order-restricted tests for stratified comparisons of binomial proportions

Abstract

The data set presented relates a binomial response to ordered levels of an explanatory variable, representing doses of a drug, with data collected at several centers. A study goal is to test independence of the response and the ordinal factor, assuming under the alternative only that the binomial parameter is a monotonically increasing function of the ordinal predictor. We present two likelihood-ratio tests that are sensitive to order-restricted alternatives. Simulating the exact distributions of the test statistics yields nearly exact P-values. We also discuss related analyses for comparing two groups on an ordinal response, and we propose a test that is sensitive to a stochastic ordering alternative.