What Is the Five Step Hypothesis Testing Procedure?

By Staff Writer | Last Updated December 7, 2015

The five-step hypothesis testing procedure is a method for testing a hypothesis, a proposed answer of solution for the reason an occurrence is happening. Also referred to as statistical hypothesis testing, it is a form of statistical inference, that makes propositions about a population using data drawn from the population with some form of sampling.

The five steps of the hypothesis testing procedure include making assumptions, stating the research and null hypotheses and selecting alpha, selecting the sampling distribution and specifying the test distribution, computing the test statistic, and making a decision and interpreting the results. These five steps offer a procedure to follow for testing any hypothesis regardless of the problem in question.

The making assumptions step can include assumptions about the level of measurement of the variable, the sampling method, the shape of the population distribution and the sample size. The research hypothesis states the relationship that is of particular interest to the researcher, while the null hypothesis always contradicts the research hypothesis, usually stating that there is no difference between the population mean and some specified value.

Statistics are helpful in analyzing most collections of data and have many real-world applications, such as establishing authorship of documents.