IPython Interactive Computing and Visualization Cookbook - Second Edition

Getting started with statistical hypothesis testing — a simple z-test

Statistical hypothesis testing allows us to make decisions in the presence of incomplete data. By definition, these decisions are uncertain. Statisticians have developed rigorous methods to evaluate this risk. Nevertheless, some subjectivity is always involved in the decision-making process. The theory is just a tool that helps us make decisions in an uncertain world.

Here, we introduce the most basic ideas behind statistical hypothesis testing. We will follow a particularly simple example: coin tossing. More precisely, we will show how to perform a z-test, and we will briefly explain the mathematical ideas underlying it. This kind of method (also called the frequentist method), ...