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Yes, you need to consider few assumptions while conducting the Mann – Whitney test. I have mentioned them below, make sure you go through it thoroughly. And strictly follow them, else you might end up messing with the test. The dependent variable should be measured on an ordinal scale or a continuous scale. The independent variable should be two independent, categorical groups. Observations should be independent. i.e there should be no relationship between the two groups or within each group. Observations are not normally distributed.

I do agree with Parul. Following the Mann- Whitney test assumptions is a must. Since he has already mentioned the assumptions, I won’t include them again. Here I will only mention the basic formula used in this test. U = R1 – n1 (n1+1)/ 2 or U = R – n2( n2+1)/2 R is the sum of the ranks of the sample and n is the number of items in the sample.

Mann-Whitney U test is a non-parametric test. Few assumptions that needs to be considered while conducting this test are: 1. The sample drawn from the population is random. 2. Independence within the samples and mutual independence is assumed. That means that an observation is in one group or the other . 3. Ordinal measurement scale is assumed.