Fill in the blank: Hypothesis testing is a way to see if a survey or experiment has _____ results.

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Multiple Choice

Fill in the blank: Hypothesis testing is a way to see if a survey or experiment has _____ results.

Hypothesis testing focuses on whether the findings from a survey or experiment are due to real effects rather than random variation. The idea of statistical significance captures this: the observed result is unlikely to occur if there is no true effect, according to a chosen significance level. We judge this with a p-value and, if it’s below the threshold, say the result is significant and evidence against the null hypothesis. This is different from meaningfully practical impact, which refers to real-world importance of the finding; a result can be statistically significant but not practically meaningful if the effect size is tiny. It’s also not the same as reliability (consistency across measurements or samples) or accuracy (closeness to the true value). So the best fit describes results as statistically significant because hypothesis testing is about the probability of observing what we did under chance.

Hypothesis testing focuses on whether the findings from a survey or experiment are due to real effects rather than random variation. The idea of statistical significance captures this: the observed result is unlikely to occur if there is no true effect, according to a chosen significance level. We judge this with a p-value and, if it’s below the threshold, say the result is significant and evidence against the null hypothesis.

This is different from meaningfully practical impact, which refers to real-world importance of the finding; a result can be statistically significant but not practically meaningful if the effect size is tiny. It’s also not the same as reliability (consistency across measurements or samples) or accuracy (closeness to the true value). So the best fit describes results as statistically significant because hypothesis testing is about the probability of observing what we did under chance.

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