Students often believe that statistical significance is the only determinant of whether a quantitative result is "important." In this paper, I review traditional null hypothesis statistical testing to identify what questions inferential statistics can and cannot answer, including statistical significance, effect size and direction,…

This comment discusses some issues about the use and reporting of experimental studies in education, illustrated by a recently published study that claimed (i) that an educational innovation was effective despite outcomes not reaching statistical significance, and (ii) that this refuted the findings of an earlier study. The two key issues raised…

The purposes of this manuscript are to identify common statistical mistakes in sport management, and to provide scholars with suggestions on how to develop and improve the quality of quantitative research. We have reviewed articles published from 2001 to 2017 in the "Journal of Sport Management," "Sport Management Review,"…

Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) is a statistical method used to examine group differences on multiple outcomes. This article reports results of a review of MANOVA in gifted education journals between 2011 and 2017 (N = 56). Findings suggest a number of conceptual and procedural misunderstandings about the nature of MANOVA and its…

Large-scale randomized studies provide the best means of evaluating practical, replicable approaches to improving educational outcomes. This article discusses the advantages, problems, and pitfalls of these evaluations, focusing on alternative methods of randomization, recruitment, ensuring high-quality implementation, dealing with attrition, and…

Given the American Psychological Association's strong recommendation to always report effect sizes in research, scholars have a responsibility to provide complete information regarding their findings. The purposes of this study were to (a) determine the frequencies with which different effect sizes were reported in published, peer-reviewed…

The objectives of this report are: (a) to trace the theoretical roots of the concept clinical significance that derives from Bayesian thinking, Marginal Utility/Diminishing Returns in Economics, and the "just noticeable difference", in Psychophysics. These concepts then translated into: Effect Size (ES), strength of agreement, clinical…

There is currently a considerable diversity of quantitative measures available for summarizing the results in single-case studies. Given that the interpretation of some of them is difficult due to the lack of established benchmarks, the current article proposes an approach for obtaining further numerical evidence on the importance of the results,…

The purpose of this systematic review was to investigate the weight of scientific evidence regarding student outcomes (physical, cognitive and affective) of a Game Centered Approach (GCA) when the quality of a study was taken into account in the interpretation of collective findings. A systematic search of five electronic databases (Sports…

The Journal of Agricultural Education (JAE) requires authors to follow the guidelines stated in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association [APA] (2009) in preparing research manuscripts, and to utilize accepted research and statistical methods in conducting quantitative research studies. The APA recommends the reporting of…

This cross-sectional descriptive study of the Model of Domain Learning, which describes learners' progress from acclimation through competence to proficiency through the interplay of knowledge, interest and strategic processing/critical thinking (CT), examined its extension to maternity nursing. Based on the identified need for valid, reliable…

This paper reviews methodological issues related to the use of P less than 0.05 in health behavior research and suggests how application and presentation of statistical significance may be improved. Assessment of sample size and P less than 0.05, the file drawer problem, the Law of Large Numbers and the statistical significance arguments in…

The present article provides a primer on using effect sizes in research. A small heuristic data set is used in order to make the discussion concrete. Additionally, various admonitions for best practice in reporting and interpreting effect sizes are presented. Among these is the admonition to not use Cohen's benchmarks for "small," "medium," and…

The sense that replicability is an important aspect of empirical science led Killeen (2005a) to define "p[subscript rep]," the probability that a replication will result in an outcome in the same direction as that found in a current experiment. Since then, several authors have praised and criticized 'p[subscript rep]," culminating…

This comment offers three descriptions of "p[subscript rep]" that start with a frequentist account of confidence intervals, draw on R. A. Fisher's fiducial argument, and do not make Bayesian assumptions. Links are described among "p[subscript rep]," "p" values, and the probability a confidence interval will capture…