Hypothesis Testing | A Step-by-Step Guide with Easy Examples

Hypothesis testing is a formal procedure for investigating our ideas about the world using statistics. It is most often used by scientists to test specific predictions, called hypotheses, that arise from theories.

There are 5 main steps in hypothesis testing:

  1. State your research hypothesis as a null hypothesis and alternate hypothesis (Ho) and (Hor H1).
  2. Collect data in a way designed to test the hypothesis.
  3. Perform an appropriate statistical test.
  4. Decide whether to reject or fail to reject your null hypothesis.
  5. Present the findings in your results and discussion section.

Though the specific details might vary, the procedure you will use when testing a hypothesis will always follow some version of these steps.

Step 1: State your null and alternate hypothesis

After developing your initial research hypothesis (the prediction that you want to investigate), it is important to restate it as a null (Ho) and alternate (Ha) hypothesis so that you can test it mathematically.

The alternate hypothesis is usually your initial hypothesis that predicts a relationship between variables. The null hypothesis is a prediction of no relationship between the variables you are interested in.

Hypothesis testing example
You want to test whether there is a relationship between gender and height. Based on your knowledge of human physiology, you formulate a hypothesis that men are, on average, taller than women. To test this hypothesis, you restate it as:

  • H0: Men are, on average, not taller than women.
    Ha: Men are, on average, taller than women.

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Step 2: Collect data

For a statistical test to be valid, it is important to perform sampling and collect data in a way that is designed to test your hypothesis. If your data are not representative, then you cannot make statistical inferences about the population you are interested in.

Hypothesis testing example
To test differences in average height between men and women, your sample should have an equal proportion of men and women, and cover a variety of socio-economic classes and any other control variables that might influence average height.

You should also consider your scope (Worldwide? For one country?) A potential data source in this case might be census data, since it includes data from a variety of regions and social classes and is available for many countries around the world.

Step 3: Perform a statistical test

There are a variety of statistical tests available, but they are all based on the comparison of within-group variance (how spread out the data is within a category) versus between-group variance (how different the categories are from one another).

If the between-group variance is large enough that there is little or no overlap between groups, then your statistical test will reflect that by showing a low p-value. This means it is unlikely that the differences between these groups came about by chance.

Alternatively, if there is high within-group variance and low between-group variance, then your statistical test will reflect that with a high p-value. This means it is likely that any difference you measure between groups is due to chance.

Your choice of statistical test will be based on the type of variables and the level of measurement of your collected data.

Hypothesis testing example
Based on the type of data you collected, you perform a one-tailed t-test to test whether men are in fact taller than women. This test gives you:

  • an estimate of the difference in average height between the two groups.
  • a p-value showing how likely you are to see this difference if the null hypothesis of no difference is true.

Your t-test shows an average height of 175.4 cm for men and an average height of 161.7 cm for women, with an estimate of the true difference ranging from 10.2 cm to infinity. The p-value is 0.002.

Step 4: Decide whether to reject or fail to reject your null hypothesis

Based on the outcome of your statistical test, you will have to decide whether to reject or fail to reject your null hypothesis.

In most cases you will use the p-value generated by your statistical test to guide your decision. And in most cases, your predetermined level of significance for rejecting the null hypothesis will be 0.05 – that is, when there is a less than 5% chance that you would see these results if the null hypothesis were true.

In some cases, researchers choose a more conservative level of significance, such as 0.01 (1%). This minimizes the risk of incorrectly rejecting the null hypothesis (Type I error).

Hypothesis testing example
In your analysis of the difference in average height between men and women, you find that the p-value of 0.002 is below your cutoff of 0.05, so you decide to reject your null hypothesis of no difference.

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Step 5: Present your findings

The results of hypothesis testing will be presented in the results and discussion sections of your research paper, dissertation or thesis.

In the results section you should give a brief summary of the data and a summary of the results of your statistical test (for example, the estimated difference between group means and associated p-value). In the discussion, you can discuss whether your initial hypothesis was supported by your results or not.

In the formal language of hypothesis testing, we talk about rejecting or failing to reject the null hypothesis. You will probably be asked to do this in your statistics assignments.

Stating results in a statistics assignment
In our comparison of mean height between men and women we found an average difference of 13.7 cm and a p-value of 0.002; therefore, we can reject the null hypothesis that men are not taller than women and conclude that there is likely a difference in height between men and women.

However, when presenting research results in academic papers we rarely talk this way. Instead, we go back to our alternate hypothesis (in this case, the hypothesis that men are on average taller than women) and state whether the result of our test did or did not support the alternate hypothesis.

If your null hypothesis was rejected, this result is interpreted as “supported the alternate hypothesis.”

Stating results in a research paper
We found a difference in average height between men and women of 14.3cm, with a p-value of 0.002, consistent with our hypothesis that there is a difference in height between men and women.

These are superficial differences; you can see that they mean the same thing.

You might notice that we don’t say that we reject or fail to reject the alternate hypothesis. This is because hypothesis testing is not designed to prove or disprove anything. It is only designed to test whether a pattern we measure could have arisen spuriously, or by chance.

If we reject the null hypothesis based on our research (i.e., we find that it is unlikely that the pattern arose by chance), then we can say our test lends support to our hypothesis. But if the pattern does not pass our decision rule, meaning that it could have arisen by chance, then we say the test is inconsistent with our hypothesis.

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If you want to know more about statistics, methodology, or research bias, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Frequently asked questions about hypothesis testing

What is hypothesis testing?

Hypothesis testing is a formal procedure for investigating our ideas about the world using statistics. It is used by scientists to test specific predictions, called hypotheses, by calculating how likely it is that a pattern or relationship between variables could have arisen by chance.

What is a hypothesis?

A hypothesis states your predictions about what your research will find. It is a tentative answer to your research question that has not yet been tested. For some research projects, you might have to write several hypotheses that address different aspects of your research question.

A hypothesis is not just a guess — it should be based on existing theories and knowledge. It also has to be testable, which means you can support or refute it through scientific research methods (such as experiments, observations and statistical analysis of data).

What are null and alternative hypotheses?

Null and alternative hypotheses are used in statistical hypothesis testing. The null hypothesis of a test always predicts no effect or no relationship between variables, while the alternative hypothesis states your research prediction of an effect or relationship.

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Rebecca Bevans

Rebecca is working on her PhD in soil ecology and spends her free time writing. She's very happy to be able to nerd out about statistics with all of you.