Hypotheses testing

This procedure for the testing of two hypotheses is adscribed to Newman and Pearson, and can be carried out in three basic steps, according to Gigerenzer et al (2004¹).

Procedure

Set up two statistical hypotheses, and decide about alpha, beta, and sample size before carrying out the experiment.
If the data falls into the rejection region of H1 (alpha), accept H2; otherwise, accept H1².
Use this procedure only when you have two hypotheses clearly stated (ie, either mean = 8, or mean = 10) and you have enough information as to estimate the values of alpha and beta.

References

1. GIGERENZER Gerd, Stefan KRAUSS & Oliver VITOUCH (2004).The null ritual: what you always wanted to know about significance testing but were afraid to ask. Chapter 21 in David KAPLAN [ed] (2004), The SAGE handbook of quantitative methodology for the social sciences. SAGE (California, USA), 2004. ISBN 9780761923596.

+++ Footnotes +++

2. Note that accepting a hypothesis does not imply that you believe in it, only that you act as if it were true.

Want to know more?

Fisher-Perez's test of significance: This page deals with Fisher's significance testing procedure, based on simply testing data against one hypothesis (the null hypothesis).