Abstract
An approximation to the exact distribution of the Wilcoxon signed ranks test statistic based on the one-sample t-test applied to ranks is compared with the usual normal approximation. A second approximation based on a linear combination of the normal statistic and the t-statistic is introduced. The normal approximation tends to result in a conservative test in the tails, while the Student's t approximation tends to be liberal. The average of the two statistics provides a test that usually has an alpha level as close as possible to the α-levels .05, .025, .01 and .005, for values of n < 50 (only cases examined).

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