Hypothesis Testing
This part is the inferential core of the handbook. Its purpose is to turn exploratory findings into formal decisions under uncertainty using null/alternative hypotheses, test statistics, and p-values.
Use this section after descriptive exploration, not before. In practice, you should first inspect data quality and distributional behavior, then choose tests that match the data structure and assumptions.
How This Part Is Structured
| Block | Purpose | Main chapters |
|---|---|---|
| Core framework | Build testing logic and notation | Normal Distribution Review, Population, Sample, One-sided vs Two-sided, Sigma Unknown, CLT |
| Single-parameter tests | Test means, variances, proportions, and standard deviations | Statistical Tests with Unknown Variance, Testing Population Mean, Testing Variance, Testing Population Proportion, Testing Standard Deviation |
| Group-comparison tests | Compare independent/paired groups and equivalence | Difference Between Means, Difference Mean Paired, Testing Difference in Variances, One-sample t-test, Paired/Unpaired/Welch tests, TOST |
| Distribution and count tests | Test distributional or categorical assumptions | Median Test, Chi-squared Tests, Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test |
| Multi-group and dependency tests | Handle ANOVA-type designs and association/correlation testing | One-way ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis, Two-way ANOVA, Repeated Measures ANOVA, Friedman Test, Testing Correlations, Causality |
| Integrated practice | Apply end-to-end test workflows | Problems |
How To Use It
Start from your analysis purpose in 4 The Big Picture: Why We Analyze Data and then choose the formal test path with Appendix A — Method Selection Guide (Appendix A).
When a chapter mentions assumptions, verify those assumptions with the corresponding descriptive diagnostics before interpreting p-values.