Mastering pandas - Second Edition

The alpha and p-values

In order to conduct an experiment to support or disprove our null hypothesis, we need to come up with an approach that will allow us to make the decision in a concrete and measurable way. To do this test of significance, we have to consider two numbers—the p-value of the test statistic and the threshold level of significance, which is also known as alpha.

The p-value is the probability that the result we observe by assuming that the null hypothesis is true occurred by chance alone.

The p-value can also be thought of as the probability of obtaining a test statistic as extreme as or more extreme than the obtained test statistic, given that the null hypothesis is true.

The alpha value is the threshold value against which ...