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Hypothesis Testing
- Form hypotheses (null and alternative)
- Find test statistic (value from sample data on which decision is based
- z-test (if it follows Z distribution)
- t-test (if it follows T distribution)
- χ2-test (if it follows χ2 distribution)
- Find rejection region
- Reach conclusion
Significance Level
represents "significance level" and is usually predetermined. It is the probability that we make a type 1 error (see below).
2 types of errors:
- Rejecting the null hypothesis when the null hypothesis is true
- Fail to reject the null hypothesis although the null hypothesis is false
Case 1: Normal population with known σ
Null hypothesis:
Test Statistic:
Rejection Region:
Case 2: Large Sample
Similar to Case 1, but we use our sample standard deviation instead of σ
Null hypothesis:
Test Statistic:
Rejection Region:
Case 3: Normal population with unknown σ and small sample
Similar to Case 2, only we use t-test instead of z-test.
Null hypothesis:
Test Statistic:
Rejection Region:
Example
Suppose we have the following information
- (known standard deviation)
- (our claim about a normal distribution)
- (sample size)
- (sample average)
- (sample standard deviation)
Null hypothesis
Alternative Hypothesis
Test Statistic
If our significance level
- We reject the null hypothesis if
- , so we reject the null hypothesis.
One-sided vs. Two-sided
If the null hypothesis is that the average is a certain number ():
- a one-sided test
- would be if our alternative hypothesis is either or .
- a two-sided test
- includes both cases of the above alternatives in a single alternative hypothesis: .
Lecture 15
Testing Population Proportion
- We must have a large sample
- (the proportion is claimed to be some number )
-
- Note: be careful to use in the denominator, not !
Rejection Region:
Closer look at Hypothesis Testing
If the null hypothesis is true, the significance level is the probability that the null hypothesis will be rejected:
If is true:
Errors
- Type 1
- Rejecting the null hypothesis when the null hypothesis is true
- We let the probability that the null hypothesis is true and the test statistic falls into the rejection region
- Type 2
- Fail to reject the null hypothesis although the null hypothesis is false
- we don't care about this, but the book discusses a way to calculate this probability
P-Values
Suppose that we reject the null hypothesis at 5% significance level, but not at 1%.
Our statistic changes from sample to sample, but if the null hypothesis is true, and our statistic should be somewhere around 0. If our for example, then we know that something is wrong with our null hypothesis.
P-value is the probability that another test statistic is further away from mean 0 than our above. If this value very small (i.e. smaller than the significance level ), then we reject the null hypothesis.
What about t-test?
Substitute for