hypothesis testing calculator power

Power & Sample Size Calculator

Use this advanced sample size calculator to calculate the sample size required for a one-sample statistic, or for differences between two proportions or means (two independent samples). More than two groups supported for binomial data. Calculate power given sample size, alpha, and the minimum detectable effect (MDE, minimum effect of interest).

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• Using the power & sample size calculator

Parameters for sample size and power calculations

Calculator output.

• Why is sample size determination important?
• What is statistical power?

Post-hoc power (Observed power)

• Sample size formula
• Types of null and alternative hypotheses in significance tests
• Absolute versus relative difference and why it matters for sample size determination

    Using the power & sample size calculator

This calculator allows the evaluation of different statistical designs when planning an experiment (trial, test) which utilizes a Null-Hypothesis Statistical Test to make inferences. It can be used both as a sample size calculator and as a statistical power calculator . Usually one would determine the sample size required given a particular power requirement, but in cases where there is a predetermined sample size one can instead calculate the power for a given effect size of interest.

1. Number of test groups. The sample size calculator supports experiments in which one is gathering data on a single sample in order to compare it to a general population or known reference value (one-sample), as well as ones where a control group is compared to one or more treatment groups ( two-sample, k-sample ) in order to detect differences between them. For comparing more than one treatment group to a control group the sample size adjustments based on the Dunnett's correction are applied. These are only approximately accurate and subject to the assumption of about equal effect size in all k groups, and can only support equal sample sizes in all groups and the control. Power calculations are not currently supported for more than one treatment group due to their complexity.

2. Type of outcome . The outcome of interest can be the absolute difference of two proportions (binomial data, e.g. conversion rate or event rate), the absolute difference of two means (continuous data, e.g. height, weight, speed, time, revenue, etc.), or the relative difference between two proportions or two means (percent difference, percent change, etc.). See Absolute versus relative difference for additional information. One can also calculate power and sample size for the mean of just a single group. The sample size and power calculator uses the Z-distribution (normal distribution) .

3. Baseline The baseline mean (mean under H 0 ) is the number one would expect to see if all experiment participants were assigned to the control group. It is the mean one expects to observe if the treatment has no effect whatsoever.

4. Minimum Detectable Effect . The minimum effect of interest, which is often called the minimum detectable effect ( MDE , but more accurately: MRDE, minimum reliably detectable effect) should be a difference one would not like to miss , if it existed. It can be entered as a proportion (e.g. 0.10) or as percentage (e.g. 10%). It is always relative to the mean/proportion under H 0 ± the superiority/non-inferiority or equivalence margin. For example, if the baseline mean is 10 and there is a superiority alternative hypothesis with a superiority margin of 1 and the minimum effect of interest relative to the baseline is 3, then enter an MDE of 2 , since the MDE plus the superiority margin will equal exactly 3. In this case the MDE (MRDE) is calculated relative to the baseline plus the superiority margin, as it is usually more intuitive to be interested in that value.

If entering means data, one needs to specify the mean under the null hypothesis (worst-case scenario for a composite null) and the standard deviation of the data (for a known population or estimated from a sample).

5. Type of alternative hypothesis . The calculator supports superiority , non-inferiority and equivalence alternative hypotheses. When the superiority or non-inferiority margin is zero, it becomes a classical left or right sided hypothesis, if it is larger than zero then it becomes a true superiority / non-inferiority design. The equivalence margin cannot be zero. See Types of null and alternative hypothesis below for an in-depth explanation.

6. Acceptable error rates . The type I error rate, α , should always be provided. Power, calculated as 1 - β , where β is the type II error rate, is only required when determining sample size. For an in-depth explanation of power see What is statistical power below. The type I error rate is equivalent to the significance threshold if one is doing p-value calculations and to the confidence level if using confidence intervals.

The sample size calculator will output the sample size of the single group or of all groups, as well as the total sample size required. If used to solve for power it will output the power as a proportion and as a percentage.

    Why is sample size determination important?

While this online software provides the means to determine the sample size of a test, it is of great importance to understand the context of the question, the "why" of it all.

Estimating the required sample size before running an experiment that will be judged by a statistical test (a test of significance, confidence interval, etc.) allows one to:

• determine the sample size needed to detect an effect of a given size with a given probability
• be aware of the magnitude of the effect that can be detected with a certain sample size and power
• calculate the power for a given sample size and effect size of interest

This is crucial information with regards to making the test cost-efficient. Having a proper sample size can even mean the difference between conducting the experiment or postponing it for when one can afford a sample of size that is large enough to ensure a high probability to detect an effect of practical significance.

For example, if a medical trial has low power, say less than 80% (β = 0.2) for a given minimum effect of interest, then it might be unethical to conduct it due to its low probability of rejecting the null hypothesis and establishing the effectiveness of the treatment. Similarly, for experiments in physics, psychology, economics, marketing, conversion rate optimization, etc. Balancing the risks and rewards and assuring the cost-effectiveness of an experiment is a task that requires juggling with the interests of many stakeholders which is well beyond the scope of this text.

    What is statistical power?

Statistical power is the probability of rejecting a false null hypothesis with a given level of statistical significance , against a particular alternative hypothesis. Alternatively, it can be said to be the probability to detect with a given level of significance a true effect of a certain magnitude. This is what one gets when using the tool in "power calculator" mode. Power is closely related with the type II error rate: β, and it is always equal to (1 - β). In a probability notation the type two error for a given point alternative can be expressed as [1] :

β(T α ; μ 1 ) = P(d(X) ≤ c α ; μ = μ 1 )

It should be understood that the type II error rate is calculated at a given point, signified by the presence of a parameter for the function of beta. Similarly, such a parameter is present in the expression for power since POW = 1 - β [1] :

POW(T α ; μ 1 ) = P(d(X) > c α ; μ = μ 1 )

In the equations above c α represents the critical value for rejecting the null (significance threshold), d(X) is a statistical function of the parameter of interest - usually a transformation to a standardized score, and μ 1 is a specific value from the space of the alternative hypothesis.

One can also calculate and plot the whole power function, getting an estimate of the power for many different alternative hypotheses. Due to the S-shape of the function, power quickly rises to nearly 100% for larger effect sizes, while it decreases more gradually to zero for smaller effect sizes. Such a power function plot is not yet supported by our statistical software, but one can calculate the power at a few key points (e.g. 10%, 20% ... 90%, 100%) and connect them for a rough approximation.

Statistical power is directly and inversely related to the significance threshold. At the zero effect point for a simple superiority alternative hypothesis power is exactly 1 - α as can be easily demonstrated with our power calculator. At the same time power is positively related to the number of observations, so increasing the sample size will increase the power for a given effect size, assuming all other parameters remain the same.

Power calculations can be useful even after a test has been completed since failing to reject the null can be used as an argument for the null and against particular alternative hypotheses to the extent to which the test had power to reject them. This is more explicitly defined in the severe testing concept proposed by Mayo & Spanos (2006).

Computing observed power is only useful if there was no rejection of the null hypothesis and one is interested in estimating how probative the test was towards the null . It is absolutely useless to compute post-hoc power for a test which resulted in a statistically significant effect being found [5] . If the effect is significant, then the test had enough power to detect it. In fact, there is a 1 to 1 inverse relationship between observed power and statistical significance, so one gains nothing from calculating post-hoc power, e.g. a test planned for α = 0.05 that passed with a p-value of just 0.0499 will have exactly 50% observed power (observed β = 0.5).

I strongly encourage using this power and sample size calculator to compute observed power in the former case, and strongly discourage it in the latter.

    Sample size formula

The formula for calculating the sample size of a test group in a one-sided test of absolute difference is:

where Z 1-α is the Z-score corresponding to the selected statistical significance threshold α , Z 1-β is the Z-score corresponding to the selected statistical power 1-β , σ is the known or estimated standard deviation, and δ is the minimum effect size of interest. The standard deviation is estimated analytically in calculations for proportions, and empirically from the raw data for other types of means.

The formula applies to single sample tests as well as to tests of absolute difference between two samples. A proprietary modification is employed when calculating the required sample size in a test of relative difference . This modification has been extensively tested under a variety of scenarios through simulations.

    Types of null and alternative hypotheses in significance tests

When doing sample size calculations, it is important that the null hypothesis (H 0 , the hypothesis being tested) and the alternative hypothesis is (H 1 ) are well thought out. The test can reject the null or it can fail to reject it. Strictly logically speaking it cannot lead to acceptance of the null or to acceptance of the alternative hypothesis. A null hypothesis can be a point one - hypothesizing that the true value is an exact point from the possible values, or a composite one: covering many possible values, usually from -∞ to some value or from some value to +∞. The alternative hypothesis can also be a point one or a composite one.

In a Neyman-Pearson framework of NHST (Null-Hypothesis Statistical Test) the alternative should exhaust all values that do not belong to the null, so it is usually composite. Below is an illustration of some possible combinations of null and alternative statistical hypotheses: superiority, non-inferiority, strong superiority (margin > 0), equivalence.

All of these are supported in our power and sample size calculator.

Careful consideration has to be made when deciding on a non-inferiority margin, superiority margin or an equivalence margin . Equivalence trials are sometimes used in clinical trials where a drug can be performing equally (within some bounds) to an existing drug but can still be preferred due to less or less severe side effects, cheaper manufacturing, or other benefits, however, non-inferiority designs are more common. Similar cases exist in disciplines such as conversion rate optimization [2] and other business applications where benefits not measured by the primary outcome of interest can influence the adoption of a given solution. For equivalence tests it is assumed that they will be evaluated using a two one-sided t-tests (TOST) or z-tests, or confidence intervals.

Note that our calculator does not support the schoolbook case of a point null and a point alternative, nor a point null and an alternative that covers all the remaining values. This is since such cases are non-existent in experimental practice [3][4] . The only two-sided calculation is for the equivalence alternative hypothesis, all other calculations are one-sided (one-tailed) .

    Absolute versus relative difference and why it matters for sample size determination

When using a sample size calculator it is important to know what kind of inference one is looking to make: about the absolute or about the relative difference, often called percent effect, percentage effect, relative change, percent lift, etc. Where the fist is μ 1 - μ the second is μ 1 -μ / μ or μ 1 -μ / μ x 100 (%). The division by μ is what adds more variance to such an estimate, since μ is just another variable with random error, therefore a test for relative difference will require larger sample size than a test for absolute difference. Consequently, if sample size is fixed, there will be less power for the relative change equivalent to any given absolute change.

For the above reason it is important to know and state beforehand if one is going to be interested in percentage change or if absolute change is of primary interest. Then it is just a matter of fliping a radio button.

    References

1 Mayo D.G., Spanos A. (2010) – "Error Statistics", in P. S. Bandyopadhyay & M. R. Forster (Eds.), Philosophy of Statistics, (7, 152–198). Handbook of the Philosophy of Science . The Netherlands: Elsevier.

2 Georgiev G.Z. (2017) "The Case for Non-Inferiority A/B Tests", [online] https://blog.analytics-toolkit.com/2017/case-non-inferiority-designs-ab-testing/ (accessed May 7, 2018)

3 Georgiev G.Z. (2017) "One-tailed vs Two-tailed Tests of Significance in A/B Testing", [online] https://blog.analytics-toolkit.com/2017/one-tailed-two-tailed-tests-significance-ab-testing/ (accessed May 7, 2018)

4 Hyun-Chul Cho Shuzo Abe (2013) "Is two-tailed testing for directional research hypotheses tests legitimate?", Journal of Business Research 66:1261-1266

5 Lakens D. (2014) "Observed power, and what to do if your editor asks for post-hoc power analyses" [online] http://daniellakens.blogspot.bg/2014/12/observed-power-and-what-to-do-if-your.html (accessed May 7, 2018)

Cite this calculator & page

If you'd like to cite this online calculator resource and information as provided on the page, you can use the following citation: Georgiev G.Z., "Sample Size Calculator" , [online] Available at: https://www.gigacalculator.com/calculators/power-sample-size-calculator.php URL [Accessed Date: 30 May, 2024].

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Teach yourself statistics

Power of a Hypothesis Test

The probability of not committing a Type II error is called the power of a hypothesis test.

Effect Size

To compute the power of the test, one offers an alternative view about the "true" value of the population parameter, assuming that the null hypothesis is false. The effect size is the difference between the true value and the value specified in the null hypothesis.

Effect size = True value - Hypothesized value

For example, suppose the null hypothesis states that a population mean is equal to 100. A researcher might ask: What is the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis if the true population mean is equal to 90? In this example, the effect size would be 90 - 100, which equals -10.

Factors That Affect Power

The power of a hypothesis test is affected by three factors.

• Sample size ( n ). Other things being equal, the greater the sample size, the greater the power of the test.
• Significance level (α). The lower the significance level, the lower the power of the test. If you reduce the significance level (e.g., from 0.05 to 0.01), the region of acceptance gets bigger. As a result, you are less likely to reject the null hypothesis. This means you are less likely to reject the null hypothesis when it is false, so you are more likely to make a Type II error. In short, the power of the test is reduced when you reduce the significance level; and vice versa.
• The "true" value of the parameter being tested. The greater the difference between the "true" value of a parameter and the value specified in the null hypothesis, the greater the power of the test. That is, the greater the effect size, the greater the power of the test.

Test Your Understanding

Other things being equal, which of the following actions will reduce the power of a hypothesis test?

I. Increasing sample size. II. Changing the significance level from 0.01 to 0.05. III. Increasing beta, the probability of a Type II error.

(A) I only (B) II only (C) III only (D) All of the above (E) None of the above

The correct answer is (C). Increasing sample size makes the hypothesis test more sensitive - more likely to reject the null hypothesis when it is, in fact, false. Changing the significance level from 0.01 to 0.05 makes the region of acceptance smaller, which makes the hypothesis test more likely to reject the null hypothesis, thus increasing the power of the test. Since, by definition, power is equal to one minus beta, the power of a test will get smaller as beta gets bigger.

Suppose a researcher conducts an experiment to test a hypothesis. If she doubles her sample size, which of the following will increase?

I. The power of the hypothesis test. II. The effect size of the hypothesis test. III. The probability of making a Type II error.

The correct answer is (A). Increasing sample size makes the hypothesis test more sensitive - more likely to reject the null hypothesis when it is, in fact, false. Thus, it increases the power of the test. The effect size is not affected by sample size. And the probability of making a Type II error gets smaller, not bigger, as sample size increases.

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25.1 - definition of power.

Let's start our discussion of statistical power by recalling two definitions we learned when we first introduced to hypothesis testing:

• A Type I error occurs if we reject the null hypothesis \(H_0\) (in favor of the alternative hypothesis \(H_A\)) when the null hypothesis \(H_0\) is true. We denote \(\alpha=P(\text{Type I error})\).
• A Type II error occurs if we fail to reject the null hypothesis \(H_0\) when the alternative hypothesis \(H_A\) is true. We denote \(\beta=P(\text{Type II error})\).

You'll certainly need to know these two definitions inside and out, as you'll be thinking about them a lot in this lesson, and at any time in the future when you need to calculate a sample size either for yourself or for someone else.

Example 25-1 Section  

The Brinell hardness scale is one of several definitions used in the field of materials science to quantify the hardness of a piece of metal. The Brinell hardness measurement of a certain type of rebar used for reinforcing concrete and masonry structures was assumed to be normally distributed with a standard deviation of 10 kilograms of force per square millimeter. Using a random sample of \(n=25\) bars, an engineer is interested in performing the following hypothesis test:

• the null hypothesis \(H_0:\mu=170\)
• against the alternative hypothesis \(H_A:\mu>170\)

If the engineer decides to reject the null hypothesis if the sample mean is 172 or greater, that is, if \(\bar{X} \ge 172 \), what is the probability that the engineer commits a Type I error?

In this case, the engineer commits a Type I error if his observed sample mean falls in the rejection region, that is, if it is 172 or greater, when the true (unknown) population mean is indeed 170. Graphically, \(\alpha\), the engineer's probability of committing a Type I error looks like this:

Now, we can calculate the engineer's value of \(\alpha\) by making the transformation from a normal distribution with a mean of 170 and a standard deviation of 10 to that of \(Z\), the standard normal distribution using:

\(Z= \frac{\bar{X}-\mu}{\sigma / \sqrt{n}} \)

Doing so, we get:

So, calculating the engineer's probability of committing a Type I error reduces to making a normal probability calculation. The probability is 0.1587 as illustrated here:

\(\alpha = P(\bar{X} \ge 172 \text { if } \mu = 170) = P(Z \ge 1.00) = 0.1587 \)

A probability of 0.1587 is a bit high. We'll learn in this lesson how the engineer could reduce his probability of committing a Type I error.

If, unknown to engineer, the true population mean were \(\mu=173\), what is the probability that the engineer commits a Type II error?

In this case, the engineer commits a Type II error if his observed sample mean does not fall in the rejection region, that is, if it is less than 172, when the true (unknown) population mean is 173. Graphically, \(\beta\), the engineer's probability of committing a Type II error looks like this:

Again, we can calculate the engineer's value of \(\beta\) by making the transformation from a normal distribution with a mean of 173 and a standard deviation of 10 to that of \(Z\), the standard normal distribution. Doing so, we get:

So, calculating the engineer's probability of committing a Type II error again reduces to making a normal probability calculation. The probability is 0.3085 as illustrated here:

\(\beta= P(\bar{X} < 172 \text { if } \mu = 173) = P(Z < -0.50) = 0.3085 \)

A probability of 0.3085 is a bit high. We'll learn in this lesson how the engineer could reduce his probability of committing a Type II error.

The power of a hypothesis test is the probability of making the correct decision if the alternative hypothesis is true. That is, the power of a hypothesis test is the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis \(H_0\) when the alternative hypothesis \(H_A\) is the hypothesis that is true.

Let's return to our engineer's problem to see if we can instead look at the glass as being half full!

Example 25-1 (continued) Section  

If, unknown to the engineer, the true population mean were \(\mu=173\), what is the probability that the engineer makes the correct decision by rejecting the null hypothesis in favor of the alternative hypothesis?

In this case, the engineer makes the correct decision if his observed sample mean falls in the rejection region, that is, if it is greater than 172, when the true (unknown) population mean is 173. Graphically, the power of the engineer's hypothesis test looks like this:

That makes the power of the engineer's hypothesis test 0.6915 as illustrated here:

\(\text{Power } = P(\bar{X} \ge 172 \text { if } \mu = 173) = P(Z \ge -0.50) = 0.6915 \)

which of course could have alternatively been calculated by simply subtracting the probability of committing a Type II error from 1, as shown here:

\(\text{Power } = 1 - \beta = 1 - 0.3085 = 0.6915 \)

At any rate, if the unknown population mean were 173, the engineer's hypothesis test would be at least a bit better than flipping a fair coin, in which he'd have but a 50% chance of choosing the correct hypothesis. In this case, he has a 69.15% chance. He could still do a bit better.

In general, for every hypothesis test that we conduct, we'll want to do the following:

Minimize the probability of committing a Type I error. That, is minimize \(\alpha=P(\text{Type I Error})\). Typically, a significance level of \(\alpha\le 0.10\) is desired.

Maximize the power (at a value of the parameter under the alternative hypothesis that is scientifically meaningful). Typically, we desire power to be 0.80 or greater. Alternatively, we could minimize \(\beta=P(\text{Type II Error})\), aiming for a type II error rate of 0.20 or less.

By the way, in the second point, what exactly does "at a value of the parameter under the alternative hypothesis that is scientifically meaningful" mean? Well, let's suppose that a medical researcher is interested in testing the null hypothesis that the mean total blood cholesterol in a population of patients is 200 mg/dl against the alternative hypothesis that the mean total blood cholesterol is greater than 200 mg/dl . Well, the alternative hypothesis contains an infinite number of possible values of the mean. Under the alternative hypothesis, the mean of the population could be, among other values, 201, 202, or 210. Suppose the medical researcher rejected the null hypothesis, because the mean was 201. Whoopdy-do...would that be a rocking conclusion? No, probably not. On the other hand, suppose the medical researcher rejected the null hypothesis, because the mean was 215. In that case, the mean is substantially different enough from the assumed mean under the null hypothesis, that we'd probably get excited about the result. In summary, in this example, we could probably all agree to consider a mean of 215 to be "scientifically meaningful," whereas we could not do the same for a mean of 201.

Now, of course, all of this talk is a bit if gibberish, because we'd never really know whether the true unknown population mean were 201 or 215, otherwise, we wouldn't have to be going through the process of conducting a hypothesis test about the mean. We can do something though. We can plan our scientific studies so that our hypothesis tests have enough power to reject the null hypothesis in favor of values of the parameter under the alternative hypothesis that are scientifically meaningful.

Normal, T - Statistical power calculator

Information.

Calculates the test power for the specific sample size and draw a power analysis chart. For the two-tailed test, it calculates the strict interpretation, includes the probability to reject the null assumption in the opposite tail of the true effect

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Statistics - Power Calculator

$ {Power = \ P(\ reject\ H_0 | H_1 \ is \ true) } $

Power of a test is also test by checking the probability of Type I error($ { \alpha } $) and of Type II error($ { \beta } $) where Type I error represents the incorrect rejection of a valid null hypothesis whereas Type II error represents the incorrect retention of an invalid null hypothesis. Lesser the chances of Type I or Type II error, more is the power of statistical test.

A survey has been conducted on students to check their IQ level. Suppose a random sample of 16 students is tested. The surveyor tests the null hypothesis that the IQ of student is 100 against the alternative hypothesis that the IQ of student is not 100, using a 0.05 level of significance and standard deviation of 16. What is the power of the hypothesis test if the true population mean were 116?

As distribution of the test statistic under the null hypothesis follows a Student t-distribution. Here n is large, we can approximate the t-distribution by a normal distribution. As probability of committing Type I error($ { \alpha } $) is 0.05 , we can reject the null hypothesis ${H_0}$ when the test statistic $ { T \ge 1.645 } $. Let's compute the value of sample mean using test statistics by following formula.

$ {T = \frac{ \bar X - \mu}{ \frac{\sigma}{\sqrt \mu}} \\[7pt] \implies \bar X = \mu + T(\frac{\sigma}{\sqrt \mu}) \\[7pt] \, = 100 + 1.645(\frac{16}{\sqrt {16}})\\[7pt] \, = 106.58 } $

Let's compute the power of statistical test by following formula.

$ {Power = P(\bar X \ge 106.58 \ where\ \mu = 116 ) \\[7pt] \, = P( T \ge -2.36) \\[7pt] \, = 1- P( T \lt -2.36 ) \\[7pt] \, = 1 - 0.0091 \\[7pt] \, = 0.9909 } $

So we have a 99.09% chance of rejecting the null hypothesis ${H_0: \mu = 100 } $ in favor of the alternative hypothesis $ {H_1: \mu \gt 100 } $ where unknown population mean is $ {\mu = 116 } $.

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