Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ The ASA controversy on P-values as an illustration of the difficulty of statistics

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This is another article on a subject dear to the hearts of educational researchers: statistics. Specifically, Deborah Mayo comments on "a 2019 editorial by some of the authors of the original statement (recommending 'to abandon statistical significance') and a 2021 ASA task force statement, much more positive on P-values." Mayo is more positive with respect to P-values, while at the same time asking statisticians to be clear about the complexities and ambiguities inherent in the discipline. After all, "probability modelling in data analysis is essentially about whether and how often things that did not happen could have happened, which can never be verified." Not everybody agrees; "Researchers often wish to turn a p-value into a statement about the truth of a null hypothesis, or about the probability that random chance produced the observed data. The p-value is neither."

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Dec 16, 2024 01:50 a.m.

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