Why are p-Values Controversial?

Todd A. Kuffner and Stephen G. Walker

The American Statistician, 2019, vol. 73, issue 1, 1-3

Abstract: While it is often argued that a p-value is a probability; see Wasserstein and Lazar, we argue that a p-value is not defined as a probability. A p-value is a bijection of the sufficient statistic for a given test which maps to the same scale as the Type I error probability. As such, the use of p-values in a test should be no more a source of controversy than the use of a sufficient statistic. It is demonstrated that there is, in fact, no ambiguity about what a p-value is, contrary to what has been claimed in recent public debates in the applied statistics community. We give a simple example to illustrate that rejecting the use of p-values in testing for a normal mean parameter is conceptually no different from rejecting the use of a sample mean. The p-value is innocent; the problem arises from its misuse and misinterpretation. The way that p-values have been informally defined and interpreted appears to have led to tremendous confusion and controversy regarding their place in statistical analysis.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00031305.2016.1277161 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:amstat:v:73:y:2019:i:1:p:1-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/UTAS20

DOI: 10.1080/00031305.2016.1277161

Access Statistics for this article

The American Statistician is currently edited by Eric Sampson

More articles in The American Statistician from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().