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Null-Hypothesis Significance Testing: Misconceptons

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International Encyclopedia of Statistical Science

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Null-hypothesis significance testing (NHST) has for many years been the mostwidely used statistical tool for evaluating the outcomes of psychologicalexperiments. It is routinely taught to college students in elementary statisticscourses and courses in experimental methodology and design. Despite these facts,there are many misconceptions about null-hypothesis significance testing—aboutwhat conclusions the results of such testing do or do not justify. Hereseveral of these misconceptions are briefly summarized. More substantivetreatments of these and related misconceptions may be found in severalpublications, including Rozeboom (1960), Clark (1963), Bakan (1966),Morrison and Henkel (1970), Carver (1978), Lakatos (1978), Berger and Sellke (1987), Falk and Greenbaum (1995),Gigerenzer (1998), and Wilkinson and APA Task Force on Statistical Inference(1999).

Many criticisms have been directed at the use of NHST. Some of these criticisms challenge the logic on which it is based; some contend...

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References and Further Reading

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA

    Raymond S. Nickerson (Research Professor)

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  1. Raymond S. Nickerson
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Statistics and Informatics, Faculty of Economics, University of Kragujevac, City of Kragujevac, Serbia

    Miodrag Lovric

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Nickerson, R.S. (2011). Null-Hypothesis Significance Testing: Misconceptons. In: Lovric, M. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Statistical Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04898-2_422

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