Hypothesis Testing Essay Paper

ANSWER FOLLOWING DISCUSSION QUESTION

Provide two different examples of how research uses hypothesis testing, and describe the criteria for rejecting the null hypothesis. Discuss why this is important in the hospital setting and with patient interactions.

Hypothesis testing

Hypothesis testing refers to statistical act of determining the validity of an assumption made concerning a parameter or quality of a population. In fact, it is applied to infer results from data collected from a sample on a larger population that it represents to show whether or not the assumption holds true. For instance, a hypothesis test can be conducted to determine if a new nursing practice works better or if a population is vulnerable to a specific disease. In this case, the hypothesis test would link the independent variable to the dependent variables. If applied to the previous examples, then the hypothesis tests would be: if the new nursing practice is applied then better health care outcomes will be reported; and if the population is tested then it is likely to report higher disease incidence. In testing these hypothesis statements, the first step is to state the null and alternative hypotheses. Next, the alpha level is determined based on how the researcher seeks to evaluate the data, usually 0.05 or 5%. Finally, the collected data is subjected to test statistic and compared to a statistic table.

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The null hypothesis is rejected and alternative hypothesis is accepted if the test statistic is greater than the corresponding value in the statistic table. Similarly, the null hypothesis is accepted and alternative hypothesis rejected if the test statistic is less than the corresponding value in the statistic table (Cronin, Coughlan & Smith, 2015). In addition, the hypothesis can be tested using the significance value whereby the null hypothesis is accepted if the predetermined significance value (p=0.05) is less than the significance value of the test.  The null hypothesis is rejected if the predetermined significance value is greater than the significance value of the test with the conclusion that any noted associations are based on change factors. Conducting hypotheses tests is important hospital settings with patient interactions is important because it offers proof that the available data is statistically significant and unlikely to be the result of chance alone, with the results having possible implications of health care outcomes (Pokorski, 2018).

Reference

Cronin, P., Coughlan, M. & Smith, V. (2015). Understanding nursing and healthcare research. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Pokorski, M. (2018). Current concepts in medical research and practice: advances in experimental medicine and biology. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG.  Hypothesis Testing Essay Paper