Every semester I have to deal with the same problem in my laboratory cognition class. In their research methods class (the prerequisite for my class) students are told either the results are significant or not significant but when they look at journal articles they see things like marginally significant or approaching significance. That leads to a discussion of what significance means and why psychology takes a very conservative position on that. I tell my students that if I were in Las Vegas and had to bet on whether my results were due to chance or my manipulation, if I had a p <.08 I would certainly bet on my manipulation I tell my students is that there is a big difference between a p < .10 and a p < .50. If both are just reported as NS then we fail to provide important information to the reader. A marginal p value tells me, as a reader, that there is something interesting going on in that experiment. If it is something I am working on as well it might spur some additional work. If the results are just reported as N.S. then I would likely ignore it.
Gary J. Klatsky, Ph. D. Department of Psychology [EMAIL PROTECTED] Oswego State University (SUNY) http://www.oswego.edu/~klatsky 7060 State Hwy 104W Voice: (315) 312-3474 Oswego, NY 13126 Fax: (315) 312-6330 -----Original Message----- From: Rob Flint [mailto:flintr@;mail.strose.edu] Sent: Monday, November 11, 2002 7:40 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences Subject: Marginally Significant? One of my students doing her senior thesis ran her stats and got results of .056 and .08 for two different ANOVAs. In the past I have seen published studies indicating that these are "marginally significant." How do you deal with results of this nature? More importantly, do you have any citations (journals or books) that discuss the value of including/discussing results that seem to "approach significance"? Thanks, Rob Flint ------------------------------------------------------------- Robert W. Flint, Jr., Ph.D. The College of Saint Rose Department of Psychology 432 Western Avenue Albany, NY 12203-1490 Office: 518-458-5379 Lab: 518-454-2102 Fax: 518-458-5446 Behavioral Neuroscience Homepage: http://academic.strose.edu/academic/flintr/ Department of Psychology Homepage: http://academic.strose.edu/academic/psychology/index.htm --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
