I have a R data frame like this: structure(list(Mash_pear = c(0.328239947270445, 0.752207607551684, 0.812118104861163, 0.640824971449627, 0.615568052052443, 0.546635339103089, 0.557460706464288, 0.650480192893698, 0.418044504894929, 0.52962586938499 ), tRap_pear = c(0.0350096175177328, 0.234255507711743, 0.23714999195134, 0.185536020521134, 0.191585098617356, 0.201402054387186, 0.220911538536031, 0.216072802572045, 0.132247101763063, 0.172753098431029), Beeml_pear = c(0.179209909971615, 0.79129167285928, 0.856908302056589, 0.729078080521886, 0.709346164378725, 0.669599784720647, 0.585348196746785, 0.639355942917055, 0.544909349368496, 0.794652394149651), Mash_pear50 = c(0.192474082559755, 0.679726904159742, 0.778564545349054, 0.573745352397321, 0.56633658385284, 0.472559997318901, 0.462635414367878, 0.562128414492567, 0.354624921832056, 0.64532681437697 ), labels = c("Aft1", "Alx3", "Alx4", "Arid3a", "Arid3a", "Arid3a", "Arid3a", "Arid5a", "Arid5a", "Aro80"), fam = c("AFT", "Homeo", "Homeo", "BRIGHT", "BRIGHT", "BRIGHT", "BRIGHT", "BRIGHT", "BRIGHT", "Zn2Cys6"), pwmlength = c("21", "17", "17", "17", "17", "17", "17", "14", "14", "21")), .Names = c("Mash_pear", "tRap_pear", "Beeml_pear", "Mash_pear50", "labels", "fam", "pwmlength"), row.names = c("Aft1", "Alx3_3418.2", "Alx4_1744.1", "Arid3a_3875.1_v1_primary", "Arid3a_3875.1_v2_primary", "Arid3a_3875.2_v1_primary", "Arid3a_3875.2_v2_primary", "Arid5a_3770.2_v1_primary", "Arid5a_3770.2_v2_primary", "Aro80"), class = "data.frame") The first 4 columns are my correlations which i want to test for significant differences. These 4 columns are methods to estimate transcription factor binding to the DNA. Now i want to know which method performs best? I tried a paired t-test and unpaired t-test which seems the most suitable to me. Now i am wondering on how to interpret the test and are there other ways to test which method is better. Data.frame for readability: Mash_pear tRap_pear Beeml_pear Mash_pear50 labels fam pwmlength Aft1 0.3282399 0.03500962 0.1792099 0.1924741 Aft1 AFT 21 Alx3_3418.2 0.7522076 0.23425551 0.7912917 0.6797269 Alx3 Homeo 17 Alx4_1744.1 0.8121181 0.23714999 0.8569083 0.7785645 Alx4 Homeo 17 Arid3a_3875.1_v1_primary 0.6408250 0.18553602 0.7290781 0.5737454 Arid3a BRIGHT 17 Arid3a_3875.1_v2_primary 0.6155681 0.19158510 0.7093462 0.5663366 Arid3a BRIGHT 17 Arid3a_3875.2_v1_primary 0.5466353 0.20140205 0.6695998 0.4725600 Arid3a BRIGHT 17 Arid3a_3875.2_v2_primary 0.5574607 0.22091154 0.5853482 0.4626354 Arid3a BRIGHT 17 Arid5a_3770.2_v1_primary 0.6504802 0.21607280 0.6393559 0.5621284 Arid5a BRIGHT 14 Arid5a_3770.2_v2_primary 0.4180445 0.13224710 0.5449093 0.3546249 Arid5a BRIGHT 14 Aro80 0.5296259 0.17275310 0.7946524 0.6453268 Aro80 Zn2Cys6 21