Question

The dean of a major university claims that the mean number of hours students study at her University (per day) is at most 3.6 hours. If a hypothesis test is performed, how should you interpret a decision that rejects the null hypothesis?

Answer 1

Question options:

There is not sufficient evidence to reject the claim μ ≤ 3.6.

There is sufficient evidence to reject the claim μ ≤ 3.6.

There is sufficient evidence to support the claim μ ≤ 3.6.

There is not sufficient evidence to support the claim μ ≤ 3.6.

Answer:

There is sufficient evidence to reject the claim μ ≤ 3.6.

Explanation:

The null and alternative hypotheses denoted H0 and Ha respectively are used in inferential statistics to test relationship between two variables.

the null hypothesis holds the default position and is the one tested while the alternative hypothesis is everything else. The alternative hypothesis can not be proven. From the above example if we wish to reject the null hypothesis which holds the default position that students study a most 3.6 hours, we reject H0, the null hypothesis which holds that position . In other words the null hypothesis is innocent until proven guilty