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Evaluating Significance of Findings Assignment

Week 5 Assignment

Dorothy Yun

Walden University

Evaluating Significance of Findings Assignment

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For the purpose of this assignment I will evaluate scenario 1 and 3. As previously stated,

exploratory research is conducted to not necessary provide final solutions but explore possible

research questions or add relative information to the proposed problem. (Research Methodology,

2017). If the authors claim their research as a meaningful contribution to the literature, that

means that they reject the null hypothesis and indicate that the data supports the alternative. In

general, the significance level is usually below 5% or .05. The p-level is the probability of

obtaining a result when p<α. Lane (2017) states that the lower the significance level, the more

data must diverge from the hypothesis.

Scenario 1 “The p-value was slightly above conventional threshold, but was described as

“rapidly approaching significance” (i.e., p =.06)”. The study concluded that students in qualitative

reasoning classes have higher levels of satisfaction. The first question that I would raise is if p

which is .06 approaches significance. If it does, then collecting data will reduce the standard

error. The size of the samples were 65 traditional students and 69 online. The levels of

significance were relaxed to .10 which means that the errorallowance is 10%. In this research

study, the significance level is at 10%, which is significantly higher than the normal average. The

significance value determines how far out the line on the graph will be from the null hypothesis

value. The corresponding confidence level is 90%.

Scenario 3 “Statistical significance is found in a study, but the effect in reality is very small

(i.e., there was a very minor difference in attitude between men and women). Were the results

meaningful?”. The sample size is 663 women and 650 men. In theory, the p value is a continuous

measure of evidence, but in practice it is typically trichotomized approximately into highly

significant, marginally significant, and not statistically significant at conventional levels, with

cutoffs at p≤0.01, p≤0.05 and p>0.10 (Gelman, 2012). According to Cramer and Howitt (2004),

The level at which the null hypothesis is rejected is usually set as 5 or fewer times out of 100. This
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means that such a difference or relationship is likely to occur by chance 5 or fewer times out of

100. This level is generally described as the proportion 0.05 and sometimes as the percentage 5%.

(Gelman, 2012).

References

American Statistical Association (2016). Statistical significance and p-values. Retrieved

from http://www.amstat.org/asa/files/pdfs/P
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Gelman, A. (2012). The inevitable problems with statistical significance and 95% intervals,

Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science, < http://andrewgelman.

com/2012/02/02/the-inevitable-problems-with-statistical-significance-and-95-intervals/>.

Lane, D. (2017). Significance level. Retrieved from http://davidmlane.com/

hyperstat/A72117.html

Research Methodology (2017). Exploratory research. Retrieved from https://research-

methodology.net/research-methodology/research-design/exploratory-research/