Statistical Sciences 1024A/B Lecture Notes - Statistical Parameter, Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Null Hypothesis

• School: Western University
• Department: Statistical Sciences
• Course: Statistical Sciences 1024A/B
• Professor: Prof

Document Summary

But when our goal is to prove that the population parameter is equal to some hypothesized value, then we use hypothesis tests to test the validity of our claim. Hypothesis testing allows us to decide which of two contradictory claims about a parameter is more plausible. The null hypothesis, denoted by h0 is what we assume to be true until proven otherwise. The alternate hypothesis, denoted by ha, is the hypothesis we suspect is true and are trying to find evidence to support. The alternate hypothesis is the hypothesis that the researcher is trying to gather evidence to support. At a certain level of evidence you may decide to reject the null hypothesis. We make a decision by comparing the p-value to some predetermined probability . This decisive value is called our significance level. If the p-value is as small or smaller then we say that the data are statistically significant at level .