Question

The first week of the course you were asked to give an example of how you would use statistics in your job or everyday life. As expected, most of you gave examples of descriptive statistics. They were things like finding averages, using graphs or considering the chance of something happening. As you have now discovered there is an entire second branch of statistics called Inferential Statistics. In this post I am asking the same question but this time I want your examples to relate to Inferential Statistics (things like confidence intervals and hypothesis testing). You need to give TWO examples. For the first example, identify something that you could use in your everyday life and for the second example identify something you could use it for in your job or your future profession if you are not currently working. You should be specific and avoid just saying vague statements.

Answer 1

Hi,

First Example: consider an example of daily life where we are interested in testing the claim that average height of an American man is say x inches. Then we can consider a sample from the population and test the following hypothesis:

Null hypothesis : The average height of an American man is x inches, say

Alternative Hypothesis : The average height of an American man is not x inches, say

Second Example : It's from the field of Biostatistics where we might be interested in comparing efficacy of a new treatment with a previous treatment

Null hypothesis : Both treatments are same

Alternative Hypothesis : New treatment is better than previous treatment

I hope these examples would help you.

Thanks!