Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b95js Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T08:12:59.150Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Trouble with Significance Tests and What We Can Do About It

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

George L. Cowgill
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The rationale of customary "null hypothesis testing" procedures of statistical inference is examined. This approach is not incorrect, but it is prone to misuse and misinterpretation, including neglect of "power" and inappropriate conclusions based on conventional significance levels. The estimation approach, which often seems preferable, is briefly described. The kind of reasoning involved in statistical inference is required whenever we wish to assess the evidence relevant for or against any general proposition, whether we make any formal computations or not, and whether or not we have observed all possible real instances of relevant evidence. Statistical inference is logically unproblematic if we interpret it as a way of assessing the evidence more clearly. But statistical results cannot be directly converted into probabilities of the truth of hypotheses. This requires additional assumptions about appropriate probabilities of the hypotheses prior to consideration of the research evidence.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , July 1977 , pp. 350 - 368
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1977 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Braithwaite, Richard B. 1953 Scientific explanation. Cambridge University Press, New York and London.Google Scholar
Doran, J. E., and Hodson, F. R. 1975 Mathematics and computers in archaeology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Giere, Ronald N. 1972 The significance test controversy. British Journal of the Philosophy of Science 23:170-81.Google Scholar
Giere, Ronald N. 1977 Testing vs. information models of statistical inference. In Logic, laws and life, edited by Kolodny, R. G.. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Morrison, Denton E., and Henkel, Ramon E. (editors) 1970 The significance test controversy: a reader. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Mueller, James W. 1974 The use of sampling in archaeological survey. Society for American Archaeology, Memoirs 28.Google Scholar
Mueller, James W. (editor) 1975 Sampling in archaeology. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Rozeboom, William W. 1960 The fallacy of the null hypothesis significance test. Psychological Bulletin 57:416-28. (Reprinted in Morrison and Henkel 1970:216-30).Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C. 1966 The foundations of scientific inference. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Salmon, Wesley C, Jeffrey, Richard C., and Greeno, James G. 1971 Statistical explanation and statistical relevance. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Spaulding, Albert C. 1953 Statistical techniques for the discovery of artifact types. American Antiquity 18:305-13.Google Scholar