Chapter 6: Analysing the Data Part III: Common Statistical Tests

The One-Sample t Test We are going to use an example for the one sample t-test about whether the academic staff at the UNE psychology department publish differently than the national average of 8 publications per staff member between 1974 and 1996. A random sample of size 5 was taken from the 17 members of academic staff here at UNE. The data obtained were : 3, 21, 1, 15, and 7. The sample mean is = 9.4 and the sample standard deviation, s, is 8.41. The question is whether this sample mean of 9.4 gives us reason to believe that UNE academic staff publish differently than the national average of 8. Descriptively it might seem so, but had a different random sample of size 5 been collected, the sample mean would have been different. What we need is a way of determining whether the difference between 9.4 and 8 is a real difference or merely an apparent difference. If it can be considered a real difference we have evidence that to say that UNE academic staff have published more than the national average of 8 publications each. However, if the difference of 1.4 could easily be explained as a chance fluctuation then we cannot say that UNE staff publish more than the national average. The one-sample t test gives us a way of answering that question. The data Staff Member 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Publications 7 3 44 4 21 11 10 3 0 6 0 1 2 15

15 16 17

15 0 28

10 11.52

Figure 6.6 Data for one-sample t-test example. First, we specify the null hypothesis to be tested: Ho: m = 8. The alternative hypothesis is non-directional or "two-tailed": H1: m 8. We've taken a random sample of size 5 from our population (whose mean we are pretending for this example we don't know) and computed the sample mean. Now, we ask a simple question: What is the probability of getting a sample mean of 9.4 or larger OR 6.6 or smaller if the population mean is actually 8? Before I suggest a way of answering this question, let me first talk about why we are interested in the "6.6 or smaller." The alternative hypothesis is phrased non-directionally or "two-tailed." This means that we have no particular interest in whether the actual population mean is larger or smaller than the null hypothesised value of 8. What we are interested in is how probable it is to get a sample mean that deviates 1.4 units (from 9.4 minus 8) from the null hypothesised value of the population. Because we have no interest in the direction of the deviation, we consider 1.4 units in the opposite direction as well. This is the nature of a non-directional hypothesis test. Of interest is the probability of getting a deviation from the null hypothesised population mean this large or larger, regardless of the direction of the difference. In deciding whether or not the data are consistent with the null hypothesis, we need to consider sample mean deviations on either side of the null hypothesised population mean. We call this a two-tailed test. Had we phrased the alternative hypothesis directionally, because we were interested in a particular direction of the deviation, we'd conduct a onetailed or directional test and only consider deviations in that direction of interest when computing the probability. For example, if we were interested in the alternative that UNE staff publish more than the national average, our alternative hypothesis would be H 1: m > 8 and we'd be interested only in the probability of getting a sample mean of 9.4. We would ignore evidence in the other direction even if the deviation in the other direction is substantial. The issue of whether to use two-tailed tests or one-tailed tests is a thorny one. Experts around the world cannot agree. For our purposes, we will always be using two-tailed tests. In the School of Psychology at UNE, two-tailed tests are the standard approach even when the research hypotheses are phrased in a directional manner.

Statistics Tutorials - Hypothesis Testing (II)

Null Hypothesis Now it is time to talk a bit about the null hypothesis. We said that the main idea of hypothesis testing is, simply put, a way of validating or evaluating the likelihood of a certain statements about a population parameter (typically or , etc.) Two possible statements about a population parameter are the null and

alternative hypothesis. The null hypothesis is usually written as it will be clear the reason for the names. and alternative hypothesis is written as . In a few minutes

Example: Suppose that it is known that in the past, teachers made and average of \$800 per week. You are interested in finding out whether or not that figure had changed or not. A sample of teachers was randomly selected, and the results show that the sample mean is deviation is . What is the null and alternative hypothesis? and the sample standard

Here we apply a little rule. The null hypothesis corresponds to the statement that includes the condition of no change or no difference. If we carefully look at the situation above, there are two possibilities: Either the salaries have changed, or they haven't changed. So, what is the null hypothesis? The one that includes the condition of no change. In this case, the null hypothesis is that claim that the salaries haven't changed. And now, what is the alternative hypothesis? This is even easier: The alternative hypothesis is the complement to the null hypothesis (or in other words, it states the the contrary to the null hypothesis). Summarizing, in the previous example we have that the null and alternative hypothesis are:

This kind of test is called two-tailed. Definition: The null hypothesis corresponds to the statement that includes the condition of no change, and the alternative hypothesis corresponds to the opposite of the null hypothesis. In other words, the alternative hypothesis must be true when the null hypothesis is false (Mathematically, this means that the sets are disjoint, or, the null and alternative hypothesis cannot overlap.) Now, there are several different situations, where we can find different types of null hypothesis. Example: Imagine that you want to find out whether or not dogs live more than 15 years in average. You collect a sample of records showing the age that the dogs lived, and the results show that the sample mean is and the sample standard deviation is . What is the null and alternative hypothesis? Here, the trick is always the same: What is the statement that includes the condition of no change? Let's examine the problem. The research hypothesis is that dogs live more than 15 years. This statement doesn't include the no change condition. What's the other option? Dogs live 15 years or less. And this last claim does include the no change condition. Hence, we have that

This kind of test is called right-tailed. Example: Finally, assume that you are interested in testing whether or not your deodorant last less than 10 days in average. You record a random sample of 10 bars, and the mean is and the sample standard deviation is . What is the null and alternative hypothesis? Using the same as before, we have that

This kind of test is called left-tailed.