Hypothesis testing refers to the process of choosing between competing hypotheses about a probability distribution, based on observed data from the distribution. It is a core topic in mathematical statistics, and indeed is a fundamental part of the language of statistics. In this chapter, we study the basics of hypothesis testing, and explore hypothesis tests in some of the most important parametric models: the normal model and the Bernoulli model.
Hypothesis testing is a basic topic in statistics, and is discussed in most texts. The books in the list below are good general references.
We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyze them.--William James