Hypothesis

- [Voiceover] Hypothesis testing is one of the most common…approaches to inferential statistics that you'll find.…The idea here is that you'll want…to directly test your theory.…There's a few steps that go into this.…First off is you want to calculate the probability…of X, whatever result you have,…what's the probability of that occurring by chance…if randomness is the only explanation?…And then, if that probability is low,…you reject randomness as a likely…explanation for your observed result.…

That's the basic principle of hypothesis testing.…You can think of this as being…especially useful in a few situations.…Hypothesis testing's very common…in scientific research where you're testing…a particular theory to see if the theory is valid.…It's also common in diagnostics…where you're trying to figure out how likely…a particular outcome is based on the results of a test.…And then, it's basically the general principle…behind go versus no go decisions,…when you're trying to see if you…pass a particular cut-off or criterion.…