what is the meaning of a p value of 0.05
p-value The p-value is widely used in statistical hypothesis testing, specifically in null hypothesis significance testing. In this method, as part of experimental design, before performing the experiment, one first chooses a model (the null hypothesis) and a threshold value for p, called the significance level of the test, traditionally 5% or 1% [5] and denoted as α. If the p-value is less than the chosen significance level (α), that suggests that the observed data is sufficiently inconsistent with the null hypothesis that the null hypothesis may be rejected. However, that does not prove that the tested hypothesis is true. When the p-value is calculated correctly, this test guarantees that the Type I error rate is at most α. For typical analysis, using the standard α = 0.05 cutoff, the null hypothesis is rejected when p < .05 and not rejected when p > .05. The p-value does not, in itself, support reasoning about the probabilities of hypotheses but is only a tool for deciding whether to reject the null hypothesis.