|
WORKING PAPER
The Insignificance of Null Hypothesis Significance Testing
Gill, JeffAbstract The current method of hypothesis testing in the social sciences is under intense criticism yet most political scientists are unaware of the important issues being raised. Criticisms focus on the construction and interpretation of a procedure that has dominated the reporting of empirical results for over fifty years. There is evidence that null hypothesis significance testing as practiced in political science is deeply flawed and widely misunderstood. This is important since most empirical work in political science argues the value of findings through the use of the null hypothesis significance test. In this article I review the history of the null hypothesis significance testing paradigm in the social sciences and discuss major problems, some of which are logical inconsistencies while others are more interpretive in nature. I suggest alternative techniques to convey effectively the importance of data-analytic findings. These recommendations are illustrated with examples using empirical political science publications. Keywords Bayesian approaches confidence sets Fisher hypothesis testing inverse probability meta-analysis Neyman-Pearson File
Uploaded 02-06-1999 Document ID Number 198 |
|
|