Statistical significance, hypothesis testing, Type I and Type II Essay

Statistical significance, hypothesis testing, Type I and Type II errors - Essay Example When completing hypothesis testing there are two types of errors that may occur: a Type 1 or a Type 2 error. A Type 1 error occurs when the null hypothesis is rejected even though it was true (Bluman 2003). A Type 2 error occurs when the null hypothesis is accepted or not rejected even though it was false (Bluman 2003). An example of a Type 1 error would be a pregnancy test that indicates a person is not pregnant when they actually are. A Type 1 error probability is denoted by an alpha or the Greek symbol of ?. This is in contrast to the Type 2 error, which is denoted by beta or the Greek symbol of ?. An example of a Type 2 would be a pregnancy test that indicates a person is pregnant when they are not. According to the article entitled â€Å"Statistics Tutorial: Power of a Hypothesis Test,† â€Å"the probability of not committing a Type II error is called the power of a hypothesis test†(â€Å"Statistics tutorial: power of a hypothesis test†). Finally, the statis tical significance relates to the probability level of â€Å"committing† the Type 1 error within a hypothesis test (Bluman 2003). The power of a particular statistic, in contrast, is helpful in determining the likelihood of committing a Type 2 error.