Solved – Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test reports “U” instead of “Z” in SPSS

spsswilcoxon-signed-rank

Given two variables A and B with 35 random data points (generated with Excel in the range of 0 to 1), we applied
Analyse -> Nonparametric Tests -> Legacy Dialogs -> 2 connected Samples
in SPSS and marked "Wilcoxon" as test, which should perform the the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. All over the internet you find examples of the test reporting a "Z" value. However, our report is

Teststatistics$_a$

U: -1.032$_b$

Asymp. Sig. (2-sided): .302

a: Wilcoxon-Test
b: based on negative ranks

Why does the test not report a "Z" and how should we modify to obtain a "Z" rather than a "U"?

EDIT: Here's what we did and the output, and the original data is in my Google Drive.

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Best Answer

Thanks to the suggestion of ttnphns, we were able to detect the error. It is, as a matter of fact, the German SPSS settings. Switching to English, the test immediately showed a Z value. Will now try to see whether patching the software in the German version helps.

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