What is the null & alternative hypothesis?

1 Answer
Apr 6, 2018

Think of the null hypothesis as a neutral hypothesis. The null always assume that there is no relationship between the variables.

The alternative hypothesis is the alternate response, that there is a relationship between the variables.

For example, if you wanted to compare the difference between male and female spending habits at a movie theatre. The null hypothesis would be that there is no significance between male and female spending habits. The alternative hypothesis, would be that there is a significant difference.

Im not sure if you have learned this, but when you complete the statistical test, if the significance level is lower than 0.05 (p<0.05), you reject the null hypothesis, or in other words are saying that there was a significant difference (in this case there was a significant difference between male and female spending habits at the theatre). If its above 0.05 (p>0.05), then the null hypothesis remains.

Not trying to sound vulgar, but an easy way i remembered this was by using this phrase: If the P is low reject the HO!!!!! (Ho is the null hypothesis)
lol hope this helps