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Board of Scientific Affairs Action on Significance Testing
Frank Schmidt
In an article last year in the American Psychologist, Jacob Cohen (1994) urged that psychologists completely discontinue the use of statistical significance testing in analyzing research data and instead employ point estimates of population parameters and confidence intervals. In his Division 5 Presidential Address at the 1994 APA convention, Schmidt (in press) reached the same conclusion.
Albert Bartz, a psychologist who has authored several statistical texts, brought this issue to the attention of the APA Board of Scientific Affairs in March of 1995. He proposed that the Board appoint a Task Force to make recommendations as to how to implement the phasing out of statistical significance testing in course texts, journal articles, etc. The Board was provided with copies of the Cohen article, the Schmidt paper, and other materials.
At its November 3-5 meeting the Board took up Dr. Bartz' proposal. Board member Duncan Luce took the lead in laying out this issue for the Board. The Board approved in principle the notion of a Task Force to study this question and make recommendations. The Board also felt that the question was larger than APA; they felt that APS, Division 5, the Society for Mathematical Psychology, and other organizations should be given the opportunity to be involved. They also felt they should at least check out the potential involvement of other disciplines, such as statistics (through the American Statistical Association). The Board plans to bring this question up at a meeting of the Federation of Behavioral and Social Sciences (which includes Anthropology, Sociology, Economics, and other social sciences).
The Board appointed a subcommittee of its members to study this question and make recommendations to be acted on at its March 1996 meeting, specifically:
1. What the plan for the Task Force should be.
2. What the budget for the Task Force should be.
3. Who should be on the Task Force.
The subcommittee will talk to a variety of people outside and inside APA before making its recommendations. The chair of the subcommittee is Duncan Luce.
Suzanne Wandersman, APA staffer to the Board, reported that the Board appeared to be very favorable to the idea of doing away with statistical significance testing. She thinks this effort will go forward and that there will be quite a bit of activity on it in 1996.
References
Cohen, J. (1994). The earth is round (p <.05). American Psychologist, 49, 997 - 1003.
Schmidt, F.L. (in press). Statistical significance testing and cumulative knowledge in psychology: Implications for the training of researchers. Psychological Methods.
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