Will the ASA's Efforts to Improve Statistical Practice be Successful? Some Evidence to the Contrary

Raymond Hubbard

The American Statistician, 2019, vol. 73, issue S1, 31-35

Abstract: Recent efforts by the American Statistical Association to improve statistical practice, especially in countering the misuse and abuse of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) and p-values, are to be welcomed. But will they be successful? The present study offers compelling evidence that this will be an extraordinarily difficult task. Dramatic citation-count data on 25 articles and books severely critical of NHST's negative impact on good science, underlining that this issue was/is well known, did nothing to stem its usage over the period 1960–2007. On the contrary, employment of NHST increased during this time. To be successful in this endeavor, as well as restoring the relevance of the statistics profession to the scientific community in the 21st century, the ASA must be prepared to dispense detailed advice. This includes specifying those situations, if they can be identified, in which the p-value plays a clearly valuable role in data analysis and interpretation. The ASA might also consider a statement that recommends abandoning the use of p-values.

Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00031305.2018.1497540 (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:s1:p:31-35

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

DOI: 10.1080/00031305.2018.1497540

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 ().