Statistical Analysis

P Value


Objective:

  1. Introduction.

  2. Definition of p value.

  3. Calculation of p value.

  4. Is p-value statistically significant.

Introduction:

There are two main types of inferential statistics, mainly, confidence interval, and hypothesis testing (p-value). 

Definition:

  • The p value  is the probability of obtaining results at least as extreme as the observed results of a statistical hypothesis test, assuming that the null hypothesis is correct.

  • A hypothesis This indicates there is an association or a difference 

  • Null hypothesis This indicates there is no association or no difference 

Example:

  • a p value of 0.0254 is 2.54%.

  • On the other hand, a large p-value of .9 (90%)

  • The smaller the p-value, the more important (“significant“) your results.

How do you calculate the p-value?

P-values are usually automatically calculated by your statistical program or website (R, SPSS, Excel etc.).

Example using excel 

How do you know if a p-value is statistically significant?

The level of statistical significance is often expressed as a p-value between 0 and 1. 

The smaller the p-value, the stronger the evidence that you should reject the null hypothesis.

  • p-value less than 0.05 (typically ≤ 0.05) is statistically significant. 

  • p-value higher than 0.05 (> 0.05) is not statistically significant and indicates strong evidence for the null hypothesis.