ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Statistical test

Imagine you have a candy jar with two different colors of candies, red and blue. You want to know if the candies are evenly distributed or if there are more of one color than the other.

To find out, you could randomly pick 10 candies from the jar and count how many are red and how many are blue. This is called a sample.

However, if you do this multiple times, you might get different results each time. This is where a statistical test comes in.

A statistical test is like a tool that helps you determine if the results you got from your sample are likely to happen by chance, or if they actually represent what is happening in the entire jar of candy.

There are many different types of statistical tests that can be used depending on the specific question you are trying to answer.

For example, if you only have a small sample size like 10 candies, you might use a test called a t-test to determine if the difference between the number of red and blue candies is significant.

On the other hand, if you have a larger sample size like 100 candies, you might use a chi-square test to determine if the distribution of colors is significantly different than what would be expected by chance.

In short, statistical tests are tools that help you determine if the results you got from a sample are likely to represent what is happening in the larger population, or if they are just due to random chance.