Hypothesis

A statistical hypothesis is:

  • a proposed explanation for an observation

  • testable on the basis of observed groups of random variables

Null Hypothesis

The Null Hypothesis is position that there is no relationship between two measured groups.

An example is the development of a new pharmaceutical drug, where the Null Hypothesis is that the drug is considered not effective.

The Null Hypothesis is often referred to as H0 (H zero).

Alternative Hypothesis

The Alternative Hypothesis to the Null Hypothesis is often referred to as H1 (H one).

Hypothesis Confusion Matrix

A Confusion Matrix for the possible outcomes related to hypotheses looks like this:

An example related to the development of a pharmaceutical drug is:

Hypothesis Testing

The Null Hypothesis is compared and measured relative to an Alternative Hypothesis to determine which hypothesis is considered correct.

To measure whether or not the Null Hypothesis is correct, the P-Value can be used.

Significance Testing

The Null Hypothesis is rejected if the observed data is significantly unlikely to have occurred if the Null Hypothesis were true, in which case an Alternative Hypothesis is accepted in its place.

References