Should significance tests be banned? Introduction to a special section exploring the pros and cons
Article Abstract:
The American Psychological Assn has proposed to ban significance tests in all psychology journals because of the method's serious flaws. Significance testing accepts null hypotheses when they are not rejected. It also automatically considers rejected null hypotheses as meaningful and fails to take into account the probability of Type II errors. Significance tests have been earlier banned from the American Journal of Public Health.
Publication Name: Psychological Science
Subject: Psychology and mental health
ISSN: 0956-7976
Year: 1997
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Needed: a ban on the significance test
Article Abstract:
Significance tests used in psychological science suffer from a 60% instead of a 5% error rate, contrary to common notion. This high error rate has destroyed the research review process. Confidence intervals are suitable replacements to significance tests. A 95% confidence interval suffers from only a 5% error rate. Different confidence intervals are also compatible with one another, hence the dispensability of social conventions.
Publication Name: Psychological Science
Subject: Psychology and mental health
ISSN: 0956-7976
Year: 1997
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Rules of evidence: a larger context for the statistical debate
Article Abstract:
Statistical tests mostly yield misleading conclusions about the significance of research results. This is because the term 'significance' may be confused by the public with its ordinary connotation rather than as a term referring to reliability, or the probability of a result's occurrence. The importance of statistical results relies upon the probability of association rather on the nonzero chance of recurring of an event.
Publication Name: Psychological Science
Subject: Psychology and mental health
ISSN: 0956-7976
Year: 1997
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
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