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In null-hypothesis significance testing, the p-value [note 1] is the probability of obtaining test results at least as extreme as the result actually observed, under the assumption that the null hypothesis is correct. [2] [3] A very small p-value means that such an extreme observed outcome would be very unlikely under the null hypothesis.
The p-value does not indicate the size or importance of the observed effect. [2] A small p-value can be observed for an effect that is not meaningful or important. In fact, the larger the sample size, the smaller the minimum effect needed to produce a statistically significant p-value (see effect size).
The p-value is the probability that a test statistic which is at least as extreme as the one obtained would occur under the null hypothesis. At a significance level of 0.05, a fair coin would be expected to (incorrectly) reject the null hypothesis (that it is fair) in 1 out of 20 tests on average.
An approach used by the fisher.test function in R is to compute the p-value by summing the probabilities for all tables with probabilities less than or equal to that of the observed table. In the example here, the 2-sided p-value is twice the 1-sided value—but in general these can differ substantially for tables with small counts, unlike the ...
To determine whether a result is statistically significant, a researcher calculates a p-value, which is the probability of observing an effect of the same magnitude or more extreme given that the null hypothesis is true. [5] [12] The null hypothesis is rejected if the p-value is less than (or equal to) a predetermined level, .
Once the t value and degrees of freedom are determined, a p-value can be found using a table of values from Student's t-distribution. If the calculated p-value is below the threshold chosen for statistical significance (usually the 0.10, the 0.05, or 0.01 level), then the null hypothesis is rejected in favor of the alternative hypothesis.
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Just as extreme values of the normal distribution have low probability (and give small p-values), extreme values of the chi-squared distribution have low probability. An additional reason that the chi-squared distribution is widely used is that it turns up as the large sample distribution of generalized likelihood ratio tests (LRT). [8]