These study tips are designed to clarify key points and help you to avoid errors that students commonly make. Review the Tips for Success as you study each chapter and review them again after you have studied each chapter.

1. Given the importance and novelty of the material presented in this chapter, it is strongly recommended that you review the chapter as many times as necessary until you are completely comfortable with the material.
2. Remember that the research hypothesis and null hypothesis must always be complete opposites.
• Researchers specify the research hypothesis and this determines what the corresponding null hypothesis is.
3. If you are conducting a two-tailed test, be sure to remember to divide up the significance percentage between the two tails (for example, .5% in each tail if you are using the 1% significance level).
4. When carrying out the five steps of hypothesis testing, always draw a diagram of the comparison distribution that is clearly labeled with the cutoff score(s) and appropriate shading of the tail(s), and the score of the sample on this distribution.
• If the sample score lies in a shaded tail region, the null hypothesis can be rejected and the result is statistically significant.
• If the sample score does not lie in a shaded tail region, the null hypothesis can not be rejected and the result is said to be inconclusive.

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