In statistical significance testing, a one-tailed test and a two-tailed test are alternative ways of computing the statistical significance of a parameter inferred from a data set, in terms of a test statistic. A two-tailed test is appropriate if the estimated value is greater or less than a certain range of values, for example, whether a test taker may score above or below a specific range of scores. This method is used for null hypothesis testing and if the estimated value exists in the critical areas, the alternative hypothesis is accepted over the null hypothesis. A one-tailed test is appropriate if the estimated value may depart from the reference value in only one direction, left or right, but not both. An example can be whether a machine produces more than one-percent defective products. In this situation, if the estimated value exists in one of the one-sided critical areas, depending on the direction of interest (greater than or less than), the alternative hypothesis is accepted over the null hypothesis. Alternative names are one-sided and two-sided tests; the terminology "tail" is used because the extreme portions of distributions, where observations lead to rejection of the null hypothesis, are small and often "tail off" toward zero as in the normal distribution, colored in yellow, or "bell curve", pictured on the right and colored in green.
Applications One-tailed tests are used for asymmetric distributions that have a single tail, such as the chi-squared distribution, which are common in measuring goodness-of-fit, or for one side of a distribution that has two tails, such as the normal distribution, which is common in estimating location; this corresponds to specifying a direction. Two-tailed tests are only applicable when there are two tails, such as in the normal distribution, and correspond to considering either direction significant. In the approach of Ronald Fisher, the null hypothesis H0 will be rejected when the p-value of the test statistic is sufficiently extreme (vis-a-vis the test statistic's sampling distribution) and thus judged unlikely to be the result of chance. This is usually done by comparing the resulting p-value with the specified significance level, denoted by α {\displaystyle \alpha } , when computing the statistical significance of a parameter. In a one-tailed test, "extreme" is decided beforehand as either meaning "sufficiently small" or meaning "sufficiently large" – values in the other direction are considered not significant. One may report that the left or right tail probability as the one-tailed p-value, which ultimately corresponds to the direction in which the test statistic deviates from H0. In a two-tailed test, "extreme" means "either sufficiently small or sufficiently large", and values in either direction are considered significant. For a given test statistic, there is a single two-tailed test, and two one-tailed tests, one each for either direction. When provided a significance level α {\displaystyle \alpha } , the critical regions would exist on the two tail ends of the distribution with an area of α / 2 {\displaystyle \alpha /2} each for a two-tailed test. Alternatively, the critical region would solely exist on the single tail end with an area of α {\displaystyle \alpha } for a one-tailed test. For a given significance level in a two-tailed test for a test statistic, the corresponding one-tailed tests for the same test statistic will be considered either twice as significant (half the p-value) if the data is in the direction specified by the test, or not significant at all (p-value above α {\displaystyle \alpha } ) if the data is in the direction opposite of the critical region specified by the test. For example, if flipping a coin, testing whether it is biased towards heads is a one-tailed test, and getting data of "all heads" would be seen as highly significant, while getting data of "all tails" would be not significant at all (p = 1). By contrast, testing whether it is biased in either direction is a two-tailed test, and either "all heads" or "all tails" would both be seen as highly significant data. In medical testing, while one is generally interested in whether a treatment results in outcomes that are better than chance, thus suggesting a one-tailed test; a worse outcome is also interesting for the scientific field, therefore one should use a two-tailed test that corresponds instead to testing whether the treatment results in outcomes that are different from chance, either better or worse. In the archetypal lady tasting tea experiment, Fisher tested whether the lady in question was better than chance at distinguishing two types of tea preparation, not whether her ability was different from chance, and thus he used a one-tailed test.
Coin flipping example
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