Fundamentals of Statistics

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2. What Is Hypothesis?

A hypothesis is a proposed assumption or set of assumptions for a phenomenon that may or may not be true, and that either

a) asserts something on a provisional basis with a view to guiding scientific investigation (called a working hypothesis); or
b) confirms something as highly probable as opposed to established facts.

For our purposes, we are interested in the hypothesis that asserts something – for example that a new treatment for a disease is better than the existing standard of care treatment. If the new treatment is called ‘B’, and the standard of care treatment is called ‘A’ then the hypothesis states that treatment ‘B’ is better than treatment ‘A’.

Hypothesis testing is the evaluation done by a researcher in order to either confirm or disprove a hypothesis. An existing hypothesis will be taken and tested to see its probability of being true or false.