Steps in Hypothesis Testing (4 of 5)

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This argument is misguided. Intuitively, there are strong reasons for inferring that the direction of the difference in the population is the same as the difference in the sample. There is also a more formal argument. A non significant effect might be described as follows:

Although subjects in the drug group scored higher (M = 23) than did subjects in the control group, (M = 20), the difference between means was not significant, t(18) = 1.4, p = 0.179.

It would not have been correct to say that there was no difference between the performance of the two groups. There was a difference. It is just that the difference was not large enough to rule out chance as an explanation of the difference. It would also have been incorrect to imply that there is no difference in the population. Be sure not to accept the null hypothesis.