Don’t use

A response to the Like Driving a Car Activity
created November 17, 2021 by Lynne Kennette (@LynneKennette)

Number of views: 229

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Statistical significance

-students use « significant » to mean important, but it has a very specific meaning in research (p smaller than .05).

-without understanding this concept, students cannot understand anything that is being reported in journals, nor can they understand the limitations of these statistically significant findings (e.g., statistical vs practical significance of the outcome)

-I begin to unpack this in class with modelling and requiring appropriate vocabulary, such as not allowing the use of the word “prove” or “significant” in any other context during class discussions and explaining the weight of this word and explicitly explaining why it shouldn’t be used as a synonym for “important” or to mean the same thing as supporting a claim.

-most students do eventually use “significant” or “prove” in an assignment at some point during the year, which gives me a chance to further re-iterate and explain that statistics cannot prove anything to be true (only fail to disprove) and what statistical significance entails

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