Difference between data columns

[yael]

Hello

I am asking for your help,

I have 5 continuous variables while each of it has 5 categories. 

For example, a variable of the "firm age" has five existing categories such as an observation can be shown only in one category.

Or a variable of "firm size" has also 5 categories and a single observation can only be in one of the existing categories.

My question - what are the statistical ways for checking the difference between the categories (columns)? F test is the only way?

Thanks for your help

[Kurt_Bremser]

Please supply some example data in usable form (data step with datalines, see my footnotes) and what kind of "difference" you want to get out of it.

[yael]

@Kurt_Bremser  thanks for your reply.

I hope that my following sample will be clearer.

I have the following data:

			Firm stages
variables / stages	1	2	3	4	5
Sales Growth (%)	6	11	4	2	-3
Firm Age	30	33	34	34	30
Debts / T. assets (%)	60	62	55	57	51

These figures are based on 5000 observations.

The variables figures are means in each firm stage.

There are criterions for each firm stage and the variables figures are divided into the firm stages by these criteria.

I want to check if there is a statistical significance between the firm stages means. 

I believe I can check every 2 stages with the t-test, but I wonder if there is any other way to check it?

Thanks a lot for your remarks

Have a nice day

Yael

[PaigeMiller]

I want to check if there is a statistical significance between the firm stages means.

You can't do this with the data as presented. You need some estimate of the standard deviations in order to perform statistical tests.

[Kurt_Bremser]

DATA

STEP

WITH

DATALINES.

Please.

What you posted tells us NOTHING about the structure and attributes of your dataset.

[yael]

Thanks a lot! Yael

[PaigeMiller]

It's really unclear what you are saying, as as suggested above by @Kurt_Bremser, providing a portion of your actual data, and an example of the desired output, would make this whole situation clear. Specifically:

I have 5 continuous variables while each of it has 5 categories. 

This sentence really is hard to decipher. Continuous variables cannot have 5 categories.

My question - what are the statistical ways for checking the difference between the categories (columns)? F test is the only way?

What difference are you referring to? What statistic? Difference in means? Difference of standard deviations? Difference in distributions?

What variable are we looking at to find a difference?