It appears that eating oat bran lowers cholesterol slightly. At a time when oat

Question

It appears that eating oat bran lowers cholesterol slightly. At a time when oat bran was something of a fad, a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine found that it had no significant effect on cholesterol. The paper reported a study with just 20 subjects. Letters to the journal denounced publication of a negative finding from a study with very low power.

Explain why lack of significance in a study with low power gives no reason to accept the null hypothesis that oat bran has no effect.

Because low power means that any evidence obtained will be weak. Because low power means that there is a high probability of making a Type I error. Because low power means that there is a high probability that the null hypothesis will not be rejected although the alternative hypothesis is true. Because low power means that there is a low probability of making a Type II error.

Explanation / Answer

OPTION C: Because low power means that there is a high probability that the null hypothesis will not be rejected although the alternative hypothesis is true. [ANSWER]

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Note that a low power means a high probability of a type II error, that is, incorrectly failing to reject a false null hypothesis.

[Power = 1 - P(Type II)]

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