A Visual Basic Software for Computing Fisher's Exact Probability

Abstract

Fisher's exact test (FET) is an important statistical method for testing association between two groups. However, the computations involved in FET are extremely tedious and time consuming due to multi-step factorial calculations after the construction of numerous 2x2 tables depending on the smallest cell value. A Visual-Basic computer program, CalcFisher, has been developed to handle the complexities of FET resorting the techniques of looping subroutines and logarithmic conversions. The software automatically calculates the P-value after entering the respective cell values and has been validated for proper functioning with a wide range of frequencies (tens to several thousands). The important features of the program include, easy data entry, tail-selection, comprehensive report format and the facility of printing and saving of results.