No, you are not being too picky and this is why I think so: Suppose instead of
a simple t-test for independent means you had several conditions and for some
reason did a collection of t-tests among the means. You knew to take a
Bonferoni correction for alpha so that it was necessarily reduced, maybe to
.001. Then you had several of your t-tests come through significant at alpha at
.001 with p = .0008 for each. The temptation for a single t-test with p = .0008
would be to declare it 'highly significant' but when you had to whittle alpha
down to such a low value before doing the tests it is clear that phrase no
longer applies because you are just barely crossing the barrier for a null
rejection decision.
If a student wants to characterize the result is 'important' or 'big'
or'notable' etc. they should do so based on effect size, and/or practical
criteria.
Paul
On Apr 22, 2013, at 2:03 PM, Marc Carter wrote:
> Hi, All --
>
> A poll:
>
> Am I being too picky about the use of the phrase, "highly significant" (or
> something similar) when it's used to describe a very low-probability result?
> It sort of drives me crazy; all I can hear is my graduate math stats teacher
> threatening to kill us if we ever said something like that. I still read it
> in papers and it's like fingernails on a chalkboard.
>
> But perhaps I should just chill out?
>
> What do you think?
>
> m
>
> --
> Marc Carter, PhD
> Associate Professor of Psychology
> Chair, Department of Behavioral and Health Sciences
> College of Arts & Sciences
> Baker University
> --
>
>
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