Message-ID: <e83eda53861416cbe08d8e1cf29c9535@drine.ch>
Date: 2016-08-10T10:22:05Z
From: Dominik Marti
Subject: Proving (instead of rejecting) that two groups are actually equal
Hej R helpers
The standard in statistical hypothesis testing is to reject the null
hypothesis that there is a difference between groups, i.e. to "prove"
the alternative. However, failing to reject the null hypothesis does not
prove it; its rejection just fails.
Now, as stated in the article "Unicorns do exist: a tutorial on
"proving" the null hypothesis." by David L Streiner (Canadian Journal of
Psychiatry, 48(11) 2003), we can define the null hypothesis to be that
there IS a difference (exceeding a certain value, delta), the
alternative hypothesis being that there is none (or it is at least
smaller than delta). If the data now manages to reject the null
hypothesis (of there being a difference exceeding delta), we can say
with a certain probability that there is none.
Can I do this test in R? And if yes, any leads?
(In my actual dataset I deal with paired data.)
Best
Dominik