A hypothesis in statistics, is a claim or statement about a property of a population.

The null hypothesis is a statement about the value of a population parameter.

The null hypothesis contains a condition of equality: =, , or

Test the Null Hypothesis directly Results: Reject H 0 or fail to reject H0

Alternative Hypothesis, H1 Hypothesis the researchers wishes to support Must be

true if H0 is false Contains , < , >

Opposite of the Null
Large-Sample Test of Hypothesis about a Population Mean
Assumptions:
1. sample is randomly selected.
2. sample is large (n > 30)

3. If is unknown, we can use sample standard deviation s as estimate for .

Large-Sample Test of Hypothesis about a Population Mean Step by Step

1. Formulation of Hypothesis
Identify the null hypothesis (specific claim to be tested)
H0 : = 0
Identify the alternative hypothesis that must be true when the original claim is false.
one-tailed
H1 : > 0 (or, H1 : < 0 )
(Note: Keywords such as underestimate, overestimate, overstating, understating, Majority, Minority,
better, greater, taller, shorter, more than, less than, at most, at least, only etc would be featured in the
problem.)

test two-tailed test

H 1 : 0

(Note: Keywords such as change, differ /difference , Significant difference, no longer required etc
would be featured in the problem.)
2. Computation of Test Statistics
Under H0, the test statistic is:

X
Zcal = [When Standard Deviation is known.]
n

X
Zcal = s [When Standard Deviation is unknown.]
n

3. Level of Significance and Critical Values

Select the significant level based on the seriousness of a type I error. The values
of 0.05 and 0.01 are very common.
Determine the critical values and the critical region.

4. Conclusion

Accept H0 (Zcal Z tab )

Two-Tailed Upper-Tailed Test

Test Lower-Tailed
Test Z
Z
a Z 0.10 1.282
0.20 1.282
0.10 -1.282 0.05 1.645
0.10 1.645
0.05 -1.645 0.025 1.960
0.05 1.960
0.025 -1.960 0.010 2.326
0.010 2.576
0.010 -2.326 0.005 2.576
0.001 3.291
0.005 -2.576 0.001 3.090
0.0001 3.819
0.001 -3.090 0.0001 3.719
Reject H0 (Zcal Z tab )
0.0001 -3.71