Persistent Confusions about Hypothesis Testing in the Social Sciences

Autor: Christopher Thron, Vincent Miller
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2015
Předmět:
Zdroj: Social Sciences, Vol 4, Iss 2, Pp 361-372 (2015)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2076-0760
DOI: 10.3390/socsci4020361
Popis: This paper analyzes common confusions involving basic concepts in statistical hypothesis testing. One-third of the social science statistics textbooks examined in the study contained false statements about significance level and/or p-value. We infer that a large proportion of social scientists are being miseducated about these concepts. We analyze the causes of these persistent misunderstandings, and conclude that the conventional terminology is prone to abuse because it does not clearly represent the conditional nature of probabilities and events involved. We argue that modifications in terminology, as well as the explicit introduction of conditional probability concepts and notation into the statistics curriculum in the social sciences, are necessary to prevent the persistence of these errors.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals