Publication Decisions and Their Possible Effects on Inferences Drawn from Tests of Significance--Or Vice Versa

by: Theodore D Sterling

Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 54, No. 285. (1959), pp. 30-34.

View FullText article

JSTOR

Reviews [Write a review of this article]

There are no reviews of this article

Find related articles from these CiteULike users

wandall

Find related articles with these CiteULike tags

bias, judgement, publication, statistics

Abstract

There is some evidence that in fields where statistical tests of significance are commonly used, research which yields nonsignificant results is not published. Such research being unknown to other investigators may be repeated independently until eventually by chance a significant result occurs-an "error of the first kind"-and is published. Significant results published in these fields are seldom verified by independent replication. The possibility thus arises that the literature of such a field consists in substantial part of false conclusions resulting from errors of the first kind in statistical tests of significance.

@article{citeulike:1092228, abstract = {There is some evidence that in fields where statistical tests of significance are commonly used, research which yields nonsignificant results is not published. Such research being unknown to other investigators may be repeated independently until eventually by chance a significant result occurs-an \"error of the first kind\"-and is published. Significant results published in these fields are seldom verified by independent replication. The possibility thus arises that the literature of such a field consists in substantial part of false conclusions resulting from errors of the first kind in statistical tests of significance.}, author = {Sterling, Theodore D. }, citeulike-article-id = {1092228}, journal = {Journal of the American Statistical Association}, keywords = {bias, judgement, publication, statistics}, number = {285}, pages = {30--34}, posted-at = {2007-02-07 11:56:37}, priority = {0}, title = {Publication Decisions and Their Possible Effects on Inferences Drawn from Tests of Significance--Or Vice Versa}, url = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/2282137}, volume = {54}, year = {1959} }

RIS record

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1092228 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1092228 TI - Publication Decisions and Their Possible Effects on Inferences Drawn from Tests of Significance--Or Vice Versa JF - Journal of the American Statistical Association VL - 54 IS - 285 SP - 30 EP - 34 N2 - There is some evidence that in fields where statistical tests of significance are commonly used, research which yields nonsignificant results is not published. Such research being unknown to other investigators may be repeated independently until eventually by chance a significant result occurs-an "error of the first kind"-and is published. Significant results published in these fields are seldom verified by independent replication. The possibility thus arises that the literature of such a field consists in substantial part of false conclusions resulting from errors of the first kind in statistical tests of significance. KW - bias KW - judgement KW - publication KW - statistics AU - Sterling, Theodore PY - 1959/// UR - http://www.jstor.org/stable/2282137 ER -

RIS BibTeX