In statistics

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

, Fisher's method, also known as Fisher's combined probability test, is a technique for data fusion

Data fusion

Data fusion, is generally defined as the use of techniques that combine data from multiple sources and gather that information into discrete, actionable items in order to achieve inferences, which will be more efficient and narrowly tailored than if they were achieved by means of disparate...

 or "meta-analysis

Meta-analysis

In statistics, a meta-analysis combines the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses. In its simplest form, this is normally by identification of a common measure of effect size, for which a weighted average might be the output of a meta-analyses. Here the...

" (analysis of analyses). It was developed by and named for Ronald Fisher

Ronald Fisher

Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher FRS was an English statistician, evolutionary biologist, eugenicist and geneticist. Among other things, Fisher is well known for his contributions to statistics by creating Fisher's exact test and Fisher's equation...

. In its basic form, it is used to combine the results from several independent

Statistical independence

In probability theory, to say that two events are independent intuitively means that the occurrence of one event makes it neither more nor less probable that the other occurs...

 tests

Statistical hypothesis testing

A statistical hypothesis test is a method of making decisions using data, whether from a controlled experiment or an observational study . In statistics, a result is called statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance alone, according to a pre-determined threshold...

 bearing upon the same overall hypothesis

Statistical hypothesis testing

A statistical hypothesis test is a method of making decisions using data, whether from a controlled experiment or an observational study . In statistics, a result is called statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance alone, according to a pre-determined threshold...

 (H₀).
Fisher's method combines extreme value probabilities from each test, commonly known as "p-value

P-value

In statistical significance testing, the p-value is the probability of obtaining a test statistic at least as extreme as the one that was actually observed, assuming that the null hypothesis is true. One often "rejects the null hypothesis" when the p-value is less than the significance level α ,...

s", into one test statistic

Test statistic

In statistical hypothesis testing, a hypothesis test is typically specified in terms of a test statistic, which is a function of the sample; it is considered as a numerical summary of a set of data that...

 (X²) using the formula


where p_i is the p-value for the i^th hypothesis test.