R: t test over multiple columns using t.test function - r

Question

I tried to perform independent t-test for many columns of a dataframe. For example, i created a data frame
set seed(333)
a <- rnorm(20, 10, 1)
b <- rnorm(20, 15, 2)
c <- rnorm(20, 20, 3)
grp <- rep(c('m', 'y'),10)
test_data <- data.frame(a, b, c, grp)
To run the test, i used with(df, t.test(y ~ group))
with(test_data, t.test(a ~ grp))
with(test_data, t.test(b ~ grp))
with(test_data, t.test(c ~ grp))
I would like to have the outputs like this
mean in group m mean in group y p-value
9.747412 9.878820 0.6944
15.12936 16.49533 0.07798
20.39531 20.20168 0.9027
I wonder how can I achieve the results using
1. for loop
2. apply()
3. perhaps dplyr
This link R: t-test over all columns is related but it was 6 years old. Perhaps there are better ways to do the same thing.

Answer 1

Use select_if to select only numeric columns then use purrr:map_df to apply t.test against grp. Finally use broom:tidy to get the results in tidy format
library(tidyverse)
res <- test_data %>%
select_if(is.numeric) %>%
map_df(~ broom::tidy(t.test(. ~ grp)), .id = 'var')
res
#> # A tibble: 3 x 11
#> var estimate estimate1 estimate2 statistic p.value parameter conf.low
#> <chr> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1 a -0.259 9.78 10.0 -0.587 0.565 16.2 -1.19
#> 2 b 0.154 15.0 14.8 0.169 0.868 15.4 -1.78
#> 3 c -0.359 20.4 20.7 -0.287 0.778 16.5 -3.00
#> # ... with 3 more variables: conf.high <dbl>, method <chr>,
#> # alternative <chr>
Created on 2019-03-15 by the reprex package (v0.2.1.9000)

Answer 2

Simply extract the estimate and p-value results from t.test call while iterating through all needed columns with sapply. Build formulas from a character vector and transpose with t() for output:
formulas <- paste(names(test_data)[1:(ncol(test_data)-1)], "~ grp")
output <- t(sapply(formulas, function(f) {
res <- t.test(as.formula(f))
c(res$estimate, p.value=res$p.value)
}))
Input data (seeded for reproducibility)
set.seed(333)
a <- rnorm(20, 10, 1)
b <- rnorm(20, 15, 2)
c <- rnorm(20, 20, 3)
grp <- rep(c('m', 'y'),10)
test_data <- data.frame(a, b, c, grp)
Output result
# mean in group m mean in group y p.value
# a ~ grp 9.775477 10.03419 0.5654353
# b ~ grp 14.972888 14.81895 0.8678149
# c ~ grp 20.383679 20.74238 0.7776188

Answer 3

As you asked for a for loop:
a <- rnorm(20, 10, 1)
b <- rnorm(20, 15, 2)
c <- rnorm(20, 20, 3)
grp <- rep(c('m', 'y'),10)
test_data <- data.frame(a, b, c, grp)
meanM=NULL
meanY=NULL
p.value=NULL
for (i in 1:(ncol(test_data)-1)){
meanM=as.data.frame(rbind(meanM, t.test(test_data[,i] ~ grp)$estimate[1]))
meanY=as.data.frame(rbind(meanY, t.test(test_data[,i] ~ grp)$estimate[2]))
p.value=as.data.frame(rbind(p.value, t.test(test_data[,i] ~ grp)$p.value))
}
cbind(meanM, meanY, p.value)
It works, but I am a beginner in R. So maybe there is a more efficient solution

Answer 4

Using lapply this is rather easy.
I have tested the code with set.seed(7060) before creating the dataset, in order to make the results reproducible.
tests_list <- lapply(letters[1:3], function(x) t.test(as.formula(paste0(x, "~ grp")), data = test_data))
result <- do.call(rbind, lapply(tests_list, `[[`, "estimate"))
pval <- sapply(tests_list, `[[`, "p.value")
result <- cbind(result, p.value = pval)
result
# mean in group m mean in group y p.value
#[1,] 9.909818 9.658813 0.6167742
#[2,] 14.578926 14.168816 0.6462151
#[3,] 20.682587 19.299133 0.2735725
Note that a real life application would use names(test_data)[1:3], not letters[1:3], in the first lapply instruction.

Answer 5

This should be a comment rather than an answer, but I'll make it an answer. The reason is that the accepted answer is awesome but with one caveat that may cost others hours, which is at least the case for me.
The original data posted by OP
a <- rnorm(20, 10, 1)
b <- rnorm(20, 15, 2)
c <- rnorm(20, 20, 3)
grp <- rep(c('m', 'y'),10)
test_data <- data.frame(a, b, c, grp)
The answer provided by #Tung
library(tidyverse)
res <- test_data %>%
select_if(is.numeric) %>%
map_df(~ broom::tidy(t.test(. ~ grp)), .id = 'var')
res
The problem, or more accurately, the caveat, of this answer is that one has to define the grp variable separately. Having the group variable outside of the dataframe is not a common practice as far as I know. So, even the answer is neat, it may be better to point out this operation (define group variable outside of the dataframe). Therefore, I use this comment like answer in the hope to save some time for those late comers.