We could use a one-tailed test, to see if the stream has a higher pH than one year ago, for which we would use the alternate hypothesis HA: μprev < μcurrent. However, we may want a more rigorous test, for the hypothesis that HA: μprev ≠ μcurrent. This would mean that both HA: μprev < μcurrent and HA: μprev > μcurrent were satisfied, and we could be sure that there is a significant difference between the means. The probability distribution for a 90% confidence level, two-tailed test looks like this
Continuing the example, we define the null hypothesis H0: μprev = μcurrent, and the alternate hypothesis HA: μprev ≠ μcurrent. The d.o.f. for a two sample mean t-test is ν = 7.35 ≈ 7, since the d.o.f. must be a whole number. The t-value for the two sample test is