I did a biology undergraduate degree and often did reports where would statistically analyse our results. P value of less than 0.05 shows that the results are statistically significant. How do these tests actually know the data is significant? For example we might look at correlation and get a significant positive correlation between two variables. Given that variables can be literally anything in question, how does doing a few statistical calculations determine it is significant? I always thought there must be more nuance as the actual variables can be so many different things. It might show me a significant relationship for two sociological variables and also for two mathematical, when those variables are so different?
In: Mathematics
Short eli5 answer: P Value is “Assuming our hypothesis is wrong, what are the odds that we got this result by chance?”
It’s not proving or disproving anything, including a relationship between two variables. All it’s doing is saying that assuming our hypothesis is wrong (aka null hypothesis/status quo is ‘true’), you are (P Value*100) percent likely to see the result we got.
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