An Intuitive Introduction to Hypothesis Testing

The traditional approach to teaching hypothesis testing, based on test statistics, is often perceived as lengthy and convoluted. This perception is of particular concern in business schools where the main focus of statistics education should be on providing practical decision-making tools to future managers. This paper discusses the results of a two-year experiment incorporating a more intuitive graph-based introduction to hypothesis testing that places the concept of p -value in a central role. Using this innovative approach at our institution we decreased class coverage time and improved students' understanding and retention with excellent results.