Summary sheet: Statistical hypothesis testing

O1 Understand and apply the language of statistical hypothesis testing, developed through a
binomial model: null hypothesis, alternative hypothesis, significance level, test statistic,
1-tail test, 2-tail test, critical value, critical region, acceptance region, p-value; extend to
correlation coefficients as measures of how close data points lie to a straight line and be able
to interpret a given correlation coefficient using a given p-value or critical value (calculation
of correlation coefficients is excluded)
O3 Conduct a statistical hypothesis test for the mean of a Normal distribution with known, given
or assumed variance and interpret the results in context

At AS level you met hypothesis tests involving the binomial distribution. The same principles are used
for other hypothesis tests.

Hypothesis testing for the mean of a Normal distribution

In a hypothesis test using the normal distribution N(, ²), you are testing whether the mean () takes a
particular value. For example, if you know that the mean weight of packets of flour should be 2 kg, you
might want to find out if this is actually the case. To do this, you take a sample of packets of flour and
find the mean weight of the sample.

The distribution of the sample mean

If you take random samples from a Normal population, you would expect the spread of the mean weight
from the sample to be less than the spread of weights for the whole population.

In fact, if you take random samples of size n from X ~ N( ,  2 ) , the sample mean, x , has the
 2 
distribution X ~ N   ,  . This is the distribution you will use in the hypothesis test.
 n 

1. Setting up the hypotheses

The first step is to state the hypotheses for the test.

 The null hypothesis, denoted as H0, is that  takes a particular value. This would be the original
value or the value that you expect, e.g. that the mean weight of packets of flour is 2 kg.
You write: H0:   2 .
 The alternative hypothesis, denoted as H1, takes one of three forms, depending on what you are
testing.
o If you think the packets of flour are overweight, the alternative hypothesis is H1:   2 .
o If you think the packets of flour are underweight, the alternative hypothesis is H1:   2 .
o If you think the packets of flour might not be the correct weight, but you don’t know
which wat, the alternative hypothesis is H1:   2 .

If the alternative hypothesis involves < or >, the test is a one-tailed test. You are testing to see if there
has been a change, or something unusual, in a particular direction.
If the alternative hypothesis involves , the test is a two-tailed test. You are testing to see if there has
been a change, or something unusual, but it could be in either direction.

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 Summary sheet: Statistical hypothesis testing

2. The significance level

The significance level needs to be set before carrying out the test. Often a significance level of 5% is
used, but other significance levels could be used. The significance level is the probability of rejecting the
null hypothesis if in fact it is true. So in the packets of flour example, it is the probability of deciding that
the mean weight of the packets of flour is different from 2 kg, when in fact it is 2 kg. It’s possible that
your particular sample might not be typical. So the significance level gives a way of deciding at what
point you are going to reject the null hypothesis (and decide that there is evidence that the mean
weight is not 2 kg).

3. Carrying out the test

To carry out the test, you use a sample to obtain a test statistic. In the bags of flour example, the test
statistic is the sample mean, x .

You also need to know the population standard deviation, , of the bags of flour. You will usually
assume that it takes a particular value – for example you might know from previous measurements that
  0.05 and you assume that it hasn’t changed.

Suppose you are using a sample size of 10.So in this example, if the null hypothesis is true,
 0.052 
X ~ N  2,  . Once you have a value for x , you then need to do some calculations to work out
 10 
whether this value is extreme enough to provide evidence to reject the null hypothesis.

There are two possible (equivalent) approaches to the calculations.

(a) Using a p-value

The p-value is the probability of obtaining a value at least as extreme as the test statistic, if the null
hypothesis is true.
 So if your alternative hypothesis is H1:   2 , and the value of x is 2.213, you would use
 0.052 
X ~ N  2,  to find P( X  2.213) .
 10 
 If your alternative hypothesis is H1:   2 , and the value of x is 1.994, you would use
 0.052 
X ~ N  2,  to find P( X  1.994)
 10 
 If your alternative hypothesis is H1:   2 , and the value of x is 2.213, you would use
 0.052 
X ~ N  2,  to find 2  P( X  2.213) (you double it so that you are finding the sum of the
 10 
probabilities for a result at least as extreme as 2.213 in both directions)

Remember that you can use your calculator to find the probabilities!

You then compare the p-value with the significance level. If the p-value is less than the significance level,
you have found that the result from your sample is very unlikely to have occurred if the null hypothesis
is true.

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 Summary sheet: Statistical hypothesis testing

(b) Using critical regions

The critical region is the set of values for the test statistic x for which you would reject the null
hypothesis.
The critical value is the value of x for which you change from accepting the null hypothesis to rejecting
it. The critical region includes the critical value.
The acceptance region is the range of values of x for which you would accept the null hypothesis.

To find the critical value, you use the inverse Normal function on your calculator to find the value of X
which gives a probability of less than the significance level.
 If your alternative hypothesis is H1:   2 and the significance level is 5%, use the inverse normal
 0.052 
function for X ~ N  2,  with probability 0.95. This gives 2.026, so the critical region in this
 10 
case is X  2.026 , and if the sample mean is in this range you will reject the null hypothesis.
 If your alternative hypothesis is H1:   2 and the significance level is 5%, use the inverse normal
 0.052 
function for X ~ N  2,  with probability 0.05. This gives 1.974, so the critical region in this
 10 
case is X  1.974 , and if the sample mean is in this range you will reject the null hypothesis.
 If your alternative hypothesis is H1:   2 , the critical region has two parts to it. You split the
significance level into two, one for the lower tail and one for the upper tail. For a significance
level of 5%, you use probabilities of 0.025 and 0.975, giving 1.969 and 2.031. So the critical
regions in this case are X  1.969 and X  2.031 , and you will reject the null hypothesis if the
sample mean lies in either of these ranges.

4. The conclusion

Remember that the result of a hypothesis test does not ‘prove’ anything! You can always have unusual
results from a sample, that are not representative of the population. So the result of a hypothesis test
gives some evidence that you use to make the decision whether or not to reject the null hypothesis.

If your p-value is less than the significance level, (alternatively, your test statistic lies in the critical
region), you reject H0. In the bags of flour example, your conclusion is that there is sufficient evidence
to suggest that the population mean weight of the bags of flour is greater than 2 kg / less than 2 kg /
different from 2 kg (depending on the form of the alternative hypothesis).

If your p-value is not less than the significance level, (alternatively, your test statistic does not lie in the
critical region), you accept H0. In the bags of flour example, your conclusion is that there is not sufficient
evidence to suggest that the population mean weight of the bags of flour is greater than 2 kg / less
than 2 kg / different from 2 kg.

Always give your conclusion in terms of the original problem.

Hypothesis test for correlation

For a set of bivariate data, correlation is a measure of how close the data points lie to a straight line.

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 Summary sheet: Statistical hypothesis testing

A correlation coefficient can be calculated from bivariate data using your calculator. The value of a
correlation coefficient lies between -1 and 1.
 If the correlation coefficient has value 1, there is perfect positive correlation (the data points all
lie on a straight line with positive gradient
 If the correlation coefficient has value -1, there is perfect negative correlation (the data points all
lie on a straight line with negative gradient
 If the correlation coefficient has value 0 there is no correlation.

You can use a correlation coefficient to carry out a hypothesis test for correlation.

The null hypothesis is that there is no correlation.

The alternative hypothesis is either that there is positive correlation (one-tailed test), or that there is
negative correlation (one-tailed test) or that there is correlation (two-tailed test).

You carry out the test by either

 Comparing a p-value with the significance level – if the p-value is less than the significance level,
you reject the null hypothesis

You will be given the p-value and the significance level

 Comparing a correlation coefficient with a critical value – if the correlation coefficient is

numerically greater than the critical value, you reject the null hypothesis}

You may need to use your calculator to find the correlation coefficient. You find the critical value
from tables which will be provided. The tables show critical values given the sample size and the
significance level.

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