TESTS OF

SIGNIFICANCE
BY : DR. PRABHJOT KAUR
PG RESIDENT
COMMUNITY MEDICINE DEPT.
 TESTS OF
SIGNIFICANCE
• These are the statistical tests or
mathematical methods employed to measure
the probability or chance of occurrence of
biological variation, in samples by standard
error .

• It may be a difference between means and

proportions of sample and universe or
between the estimates of experiment and
control groups .
 TESTS OF
SIGNIFICANCE
• Statistical tests can be classified into two :

• 1.) Parametric tests : which follow the

normal distribution.

• 2.) Non parametric tests : which do not

follow the normal distribution .
 PROBABILITY
• It means a chance for occurrence of a specific
event .

• P = n/N where P=
probability n= no. of favourable cases
N = total number of both favourable and
unfavourable cases .

• The probability scale varies from 0 to 1 .

 STANDARD ERROR OF
DIFFERENCE B/W TWO
MEANS
• In practice it is not possible to find
differences of large number of samples and
then find the SE of these differences . This
test is applied to one pair directly if SD of
two means are known. Assumption of no
difference between the two sample means is
made as per null hypothesis .
• EXAMPLE :

• Systolic blood pressure values of 10

hypertension patients before and after giving
a drug are given. Find out whether the drug
given has hypotensive effect or not ?
• S. N0 SBP Before drug SBP after drug

• 1 160 140

• 2 150 110

• 3 170 165

• 4 130 140

• 5 140 145

• 6 170 120

• 7 160 130

• 8 160 110

• 9 120 120

• 10 140 130
• SOLUTION :

• MEAN SD

• before drug 150 17.00

• after drug 131 17.13

• change 19 22.46

• t = 2.67

• DOF = 10 - 1 = 9
• Checking the value of p = 0.05 with df = 9 ,
value comes out 2.26

• which is less than the calculated value .

• thus , drug have hypotensive action .

 NON
-PARAMETRIC
TESTS