Statistics has advanced considerably since the term “statistical significance” became
popular in the 1920s, when Ronald Fisher created threshold-value tables for P<0.05 and P<0.01.
1
The popularity of these tables led to these thresholds becoming established conventions;
however, there are problems associated with these arbitrary thresholds. “P values are a way of reporting the results of statistical tests, but they do not define
the practical importance of the results.”
2
In recent decades, P values in research have become rampant. A 3-year review of 18 psychology and neurology
journal articles found 30,000 P values,
3
and in 2015, Basic and Applied Social Psychology announced that the journal would not publish papers containing P values because the statistics were often used to support lower-quality research.
- Szucs D
- Ioannidis JP.
Empirical assessment of published effect sizes and power in the recent cognitive neuroscience
and psychology literature.
PLoS Biol. 2017; 15e2000797https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2000797
4
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 30, 2022
Accepted:
December 27,
2022
Received:
December 23,
2022
Publication stage
In Press Journal Pre-ProofIdentification
Copyright
© 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
