TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
Hypothesis testing for the standard deviation from a normal variate
BIS.Net Team
Hypothesis testing for the standard deviation is strictly a hypothesis test for the variance which requires the following steps:
- Sample n items randomly
- Calculate standard deviation
- Specify a level of significance
- Specify an equality (<. > or <>)
- Specify a reference value for the standard deviation
- Determine the test statistic with the following expression
- (n-1)*standard deviation^2/reference value ^2
- Determine the critical region for the test statistic. The critical region depends on the equality i.e. < or > or <>.
- Compare the test statistic with the Critical region and conclude significance if the test statistic falls outside the critical region.
Alternatively, a p-value can be calculated and if the p-value falls below the specified level of significance the Null Hypothesis is rejected and the alternative Hypothesis is accepted
BIS.Net Analyst and the BIS.Net Inferences APP both use p-values for hypothesis testing as these are more flexible than imposing a predefined level of significance on users.