A critical assessment of null hypothesis significance testing in quantitative communication research

Human Communication Research

Volumn 34, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 171-187

  Levine, Timothy R ^a   Weber, René ^b   Hullett, Craig ^c   Park, Hee Sun ^a   Lindsey, Lisa L Massi ^a  

^a MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 41149155256     PISSN: 03603989     EISSN: 14682958     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2958.2008.00317.x     Document Type: Article

References (63)

1. Abelson, R. P. (1985). A variance explanation paradox: When a little is a lot. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 129 133.
2. Abelson, R. P. (1997). A retrospective on the significance test ban of 1999 (if there were no significance tests, they would be invented). In L. L. Harlow, S. A. Mulaik J. H. Steiger (Eds What if there were no significance tests? (pp. 117 141). Mahwah, NJ : LEA.
3. Bakan, D 1966). The test of significance in psychological research. Psychological Bulletin, 66, 432 437.
4. Bellhouse, D. R. (1993). P values, hypothesis tests, and likelihood. American Journal of Epidemiology, 137, 497 498.
5. Berger, J. O. Sellke, T 1987). Testing a point null hypothesis: The irreconcilability of p values and evidence. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 82, 112 122.
6. Boster, F. J. (2002). On making progress in communication science. Human Communication Research, 28, 473 490.
7. Carver, R. P. (1978). The case against statistical significance testing. Harvard Educational Review, 48, 378 399.
8. Carver, R. P. (1993). The case against statistical significance testing, revisited. Journal of Experimental Education, 61, 287 292.
9. Chase, L. J. Simpson, T. J. (1979). Significance and substance: An examination of experimental effects. Human Communication Research, 5, 351 354.
10. Chow, S. L. (1996). Statistical significance: Rationale, validity and utility. London : Sage.
11. Cohen, J 1962). The statistical power of abnormal-social psychological research: A review. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 65, 145 153.
12. Cohen, J 1990). Things I have learned (so far). American Psychologist, 45, 1304 1312.
13. Cohen, J 1994). The earth is round (p <.05). American Psychologist, 49, 997 1003.
14. Cowles, M. Davis, C 1982). On the origins of the.05 level of statistical significance. American Psychologist, 37, 553 558.
15. Dudycha, A. L. Dudycha, L. W. (1972). Behavioral statistics: An historical perspective. In R. E. Kirk (Ed Statistical issues: A reader for the behavioral sciences. Monterey, CA : Brooks Cole.
16. Edwards, W 1965). Tactical note on the relation between scientific and statistical hypotheses. Psychological Bulletin, 63, 400 402.
17. Fisher, R. A. (1925). Statistical methods for research workers. Edinburgh, Scotland : Oliver & Boyd.
18. Fisher, R. A. (1935). The design of experiments. Edinburgh, Scotland : Oliver & Boyd.
19. Fisher, R. A. (1995). Statistical methods, experimental design, and scientific inference: A re-issue of statistical methods for research workers, the design of experiments, and statistical methods and scientific inference. Oxford, UK : Oxford University Press.
20. Folger, R 1989). Significance tests and the duplicity of binary decisions. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 155 160.
21. Fowler, R. L. (1985). Testing for substantive significance in applied research by specifying nonzero effect null hypotheses. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 215 218.
22. Frick, R. W. (1996). The appropriate use of null hypothesis testing. Psychological Methods, 1, 379 390.
23. Gigerenzer, G. Murray, D. J. (1987). Cognition as intuitive statistics. Hillsdale, NJ : LEA.
24. Gigerenzer, G., Swijtink, Z., Porter, T., Daston, L., Beatty, J. Kruger, L 1989). The empire of chance: How probability changed science and everyday life. New York : Cambridge University Press.
25. Goodman, S. N. (1993). P values, hypothesis tests, and likelihood: Implications for epidemiology of a neglected historical debate. American Journal of Epidemiology, 137, 485 496.
26. Greenwald, A. G., Gonzalez, R., Harris, R. J. Guthrie, D 1996). Effect sizes and p values: What should be reported and what should be replicated. Psychophysiology, 33, 175 186.
27. Hagen, R. L. (1997). In praise of the null hypothesis statistical test. American Psychologist, 52, 15 24.
28. Harlow, L. L., Mulaik, S. A. Steiger, J. H. (Eds 1997). What if there were no significance tests? Mahwah, NJ : LEA.
29. Hunter, J. E. (1997). Needed: A ban on the significance test. Psychological Science, 8, 3 7.
30. Katzer, J. Sodt, J 1973). An analysis of the use of statistical testing in communication research. Journal of Communication, 23, 251 265.
31. Killeen, P. R. (2005). An alternative to null-hypothesis significance tests. Psychological Science, 16, 345 353.
32. Kirk, R. E. (1996). Practical significance: A concept whose time has come. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 56, 746 759.
33. Kish, L 1959). Some statistical problems in research design. American Sociological Review, 24, 328 338.
34. Kline, R. B. (2004). Beyond significance testing: Reforming data analysis methods in behavioral research. Washington, DC : American Psychological Association.
35. Krueger, J 2001). Null hypothesis significance testing: On the survival of a flawed method. American Psychologist, 56, 16 26.
36. Lakatos, I. (1978). The methodology of scientific research programmes: Philosophical papers volume 1. Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press.
37. Levine, T. R. Banas, J 2002). One-tail F-tests in communication research. Communication Monographs, 69, 132 143.
38. Levine, T. R., Weber, R., Hullett, C. R. Park, H. S. (2008). A communication researchers' guide to null hypothesis significance testing and alternatives. Human Communication Research, 34, 188 209.
39. Lykken, D. T. (1968). Statistical significance in psychological research. Psychological Bulletin, 70, 151 159.
40. Markus, K. A. (2001). The converse inequality argument against tests of statistical significance. Psychological Methods, 6, 147 160.
41. Meehl, P. E. (1967). Theory testing in psychology and physics: A methodological paradox. Philosophy of Science, 34, 103 115.
42. Meehl, P. E. (1978). Theoretical risks and tabular asterisks: Sir Karl, Sir Ronald, and the slow progress of soft psychology. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 46, 806 834.
43. Meehl, P. E. (1986). What social scientists don't understand. In D. W. Fiske R. A. Shweder (Eds Meta-theory in social science (pp. 315 338). Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
44. Meehl, P. E. (1997). The problem is epistemology, not statistics: Replace significance tests by confidence intervals and quantify accuracy of risky numerical predictions. In L. L. Harlow, S. A. Mulaik J. H. Steiger (Eds What if there were no significance tests? (pp. 393 425). Mahwah, NJ : LEA.
45. Morrison, D. E. Henkel, R. E. (1970). The significance test controversy. Chicago : Aldine.
46. Mulaik, S. A., Raju, N. S. Harshman, R. A. (1997). There is a time and a place for significance testing. In L. L. Harlow, S. A. Mulaik J. H. Steiger (Eds What if there were no significance tests? (pp. 65 115). Mahwah, NJ : LEA.
47. Neyman, J. Pearson, E 1933). On the problem of the most efficient test of statistical hypothesis. Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society of London - Series A, 231, 289 337.
48. Nickerson, R. S. (2000). Null hypothesis significance testing: A review of an old and continuing controversy. Psychological Methods, 5, 241 301.
49. Oakes, M 1986). Statistical inference: A commentary for the social and behavioral sciences. New York : John Wiley and Sons.
50. Pollard, P. Richardson, J. T. E. (1987). On the probability of making type I errors. Psychological Bulletin, 102, 159 163.
51. Popper, K. R. (1959). The logic of scientific discovery. New York : Routledge.
52. Rothman, K. J. (1986). Significance questing. Annals of Internal Medicine, 105, 445 447.
53. Royall, R 1997). Statistical evidence: A likelihood paradigm. Boca Raton, FL : Chapman and Hall.
54. Rozeboom, W. W. (1960). The fallacy of the null hypothesis significance test. Psychological Bulletin, 57, 416 428.
55. Scarr, S 1997). Rules of evidence: A larger context for the statistical debate. Psychological Science, 8, 16 17.
56. Schmidt, F. L. (1996). Statistical significance testing and the cumulative knowledge in psychology: Implications for training researchers. Psychological Methods, 1, 115 129.
57. Schmidt, F. L. Hunter, J. E. (1997). Eight common but false objections to the discontinuation of significance testing in the analysis of research data. In L. L. Harlow, S. A. Mulaik J. H. Steiger (Eds What if there were no significance tests? (pp. 37 64). Mahwah, NJ : LEA.
58. Sedlmeier, P. Gigerenzer, G 1989). Do studies of statistical power have an effect on the power of studies? Psychological Bulletin, 105, 309 316.
59. Smith, R. A., Levine, T. R., Lachlan, K. A. Fediuk, T. A. (2002). The high cost of complexity in experimental design and data analysis: Type I and type II error rates in multiway anova. Human Communication Research, 28, 515 530.
60. Steinfatt, T. M. (1990). Ritual versus logic in significance testing in communication research. Communication Research Reports, 7, 90 93.
61. Student Gosset, W. S 1908). The probable error of the mean. Biometrika, 6, 1 15.
62. Trafimow, D 2003). Hypothesis testing and theory evaluation at the boundaries: Surprising insights from Bayes's theorem. Psychological Review, 110, 526 535.
63. Yates, F 1951). The influence of statistical methods for research workers on the development of the science of statistics. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 46, 19 34.