# No statistical significance but observable trends

I have a general inference question regarding scenarios when results from data are not statistically significant but there appears to be an observable trend.

For example, treatment A and treatment B are applied to 2 independent populations. Using a ttest to analyze the resulting data (lets say the data is total revenue), the p value == .2, so the effect of treatment on revenue was not statistically significant. However, the total revenue from treatment A was observably higher in treatment B. What can I say in this regard?

I've had academic advisors recommend saying 'While the effect of treatment was not significant, a trend was observed', and then one would go on describing the trend. Is this an adequate viewpoint, or a statistical folly? What conclusions would a data scientist in industry draw and present to stakeholders from a scenario like this?

• population has to be same and not independent to undertake a t test for correlated samples. Jul 28 '20 at 12:36