Statistics - t-distributions

Thomas Bayes

About

The t-distributions are used to calculate the p-value (basically you look it up in a table, nowadays software will compute it).

It's basically a normal random variable except for small numbers of samples.

They are a Family of t distribution depending on sample size. They are all sampling distributions.

As your sample size get smaller, your t distribution gets a little wider which means you need a larger t value to get out into the extremes to get a low p-value because the p value is the probability of obtaining these data or more extreme (The extremes) outcomes given the assumption that the null hypothesis is true.

T Distribution

In contrast to the z distribution, there are multiple t distributions. The correct distribution to use is determined by the Degrees of freedom (df).

The null hypothesis being true will gives a t-value of zero.

The p-value comes from the t-value and its corresponding t-distribution which depends on sample size. The p-value is just the area under the t distribution curve at that particular t value and beyond.

So if you:

  • are way out in the extremes, you're going to have a low p-value. You'll reject the NULL.
  • fall around the middle, then you'll have a high p-value. You'll retain the NULL.

p-value < 0.5 means less than 5% of the distribution are in the extreme positive tail of the t-distribution or in the extreme negative tail of the t-distribution.





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