Editing Statistical significance (section)

=== Overuse in some journals ===
Starting in the 2010s, some journals began questioning whether significance testing, and particularly using a threshold of {{math|''α''}}=5%, was being relied on too heavily as the primary measure of validity of a hypothesis.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.education.leeds.ac.uk/events/2015/cssme-seminar-series-the-argument-over-p-values-and-the-null-hypothesis-significance-testing-nhst-paradigm |title=CSSME Seminar Series: The argument over ''p''-values and the Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST) paradigm  |publisher=School of Education, University of Leeds |website=www.education.leeds.ac.uk |access-date=2016-12-01}}</ref> Some journals encouraged authors to do more detailed analysis than just a statistical significance test. In social psychology, the journal ''[[Basic and Applied Social Psychology]]'' banned the use of significance testing altogether from papers it published,<ref>{{cite web | title=Psychology Journal Bans Significance Testing | author=Novella, Steven | date=February 25, 2015 | publisher=Science-Based Medicine | url=https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/psychology-journal-bans-significance-testing}}</ref> requiring authors to use other measures to evaluate hypotheses and impact.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Woolston|first=Chris|date=2015-03-05|title=Psychology journal bans P values|journal=Nature|volume=519|issue=7541|pages=9|doi=10.1038/519009f|bibcode=2015Natur.519....9W |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/p-value-ban-small-step-journal-giant-leap-science|title=P value ban: small step for a journal, giant leap for science|last=Siegfried|first=Tom|date=2015-03-17|newspaper=Science News|access-date=2016-12-01}}</ref>

Other editors, commenting on this ban have noted: "Banning the reporting of ''p''-values, as Basic and Applied Social Psychology recently did, is not going to solve the problem because it is merely treating a symptom of the problem. There is nothing wrong with hypothesis testing and ''p''-values per se as long as authors, reviewers, and action editors use them correctly."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Antonakis|first=John|date=February 2017|title=On doing better science: From thrill of discovery to policy implications|journal=The Leadership Quarterly|volume=28|issue=1|pages=5–21|doi=10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.01.006|url=https://serval.unil.ch/resource/serval:BIB_8EF01CB80A64.P001/REF.pdf}}</ref> Some statisticians prefer to use alternative measures of evidence, such as [[likelihood ratio]]s or [[Bayes factor]]s.<ref name="Wasserstein 129–133"/> Using [[Bayesian statistics]] can avoid confidence levels, but also requires making additional assumptions,<ref name="Wasserstein 129–133">{{Cite journal|last1=Wasserstein|first1=Ronald L.|last2=Lazar|first2=Nicole A.|date=2016-04-02|title=The ASA's Statement on p-Values: Context, Process, and Purpose|journal= [[The American Statistician]]|volume=70|issue=2|pages=129–133| doi=10.1080/00031305.2016.1154108|url=http://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/TEKN/article/view/57194|doi-access=free}}</ref> and may not necessarily improve practice regarding statistical testing.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=García-Pérez|first=Miguel A.|date=2016-10-05|title=Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Null Hypothesis Significance Testing|journal=Educational and Psychological Measurement|volume=77|issue=4|language=en|pages=631–662|doi=10.1177/0013164416668232|pmid=30034024|pmc=5991793|issn=0013-1644}}</ref>

The widespread abuse of statistical significance represents an important topic of research in [[metascience (research)|metascience]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ioannidis |first1=John P. A. |last2=Ware |first2=Jennifer J. |last3=Wagenmakers |first3=Eric-Jan |last4=Simonsohn |first4=Uri |last5=Chambers |first5=Christopher D. |last6=Button |first6=Katherine S. |last7=Bishop |first7=Dorothy V. M. |last8=Nosek |first8=Brian A. |last9=Munafò |first9=Marcus R. |title=A manifesto for reproducible science |journal=Nature Human Behaviour |volume=1 |pages=0021 |language=en |doi=10.1038/s41562-016-0021 |date=January 2017|issue=1 |pmid=33954258 |pmc=7610724 |doi-access=free }}</ref>