Power

Statistical power, or power for short, is the probability of rejecting a false null hypothesis in a hypothesis test, which involves the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis. The latter usually presents the researcher’s theory—the research hypothesis. As the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis are opposite to each other, either one or the other is plausible but not both. Rejecting the null hypothesis establishes the plausibility of the alternative hypothesis (i.e., the researcher’s theory). For example, a researcher hypothesizes that soothing music improves students’ ability to solve puzzles. This becomes the alternative hypothesis. On the contrary, the null hypothesis states that soothing music does not help improve students’ ability to solve puzzles. The probability of rejecting the null hypothesis represents the researcher’s chance of ...