An experiment randomly assigned youth workers to a training or a control group and measured the effectiveness of the training by a questionnaire given to both groups. Results of the questionnaire were related to content analysis of the training sessions, which differed in some respects from the intended content. (CTM)

Journal editors respond to criticisms of reliance on statistical significance in research reporting. Joel R. Levin ("Journal of Educational Psychology") defends its use, whereas William D. Schafer ("Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development") emphasizes the distinction between statistically significant and important. William Asher…

A detailed investigation of the statistical procedure of W. Stout (the computer program DIMTEST) for testing the hypothesis that an essentially unidimensional latent trait model fits observed binary response data from a psychological test is presented. One finding is that DIMTEST may fail to perform as desired in the presence of guessing when…

This paper discusses distribution theory and power computations for four common "tests of combined significance." These tests are calculated using one-sided sample probabilities or p values from independent studies (or hypothesis tests), and provide an overall significance level for the series of results. Noncentral asymptotic sampling…

The intent of this investigation was to perform a validation study to determine whether RACE (Racial Attitude and Cultural Expression test) differentiates between primary grade students identified as having negative and positive attitudes. Students were categorized by a combination of administrator, teacher and clinical assessment into a negative…

Statistical methods are described for diagnosing and treating three important problems in covariate tests of significance: curvilinearity, covariable effectiveness, and treatment-covariable interaction. Six major assumptions, prerequisites for covariate procedure, are discussed in detail: (1) normal distribution, (2) homogeneity of variances, (3)…

Reports the results of research that used descriptor subfiles in the online version of "MLA Bibliography" to quantify literary warrant in the domain of scholarly work about fiction. Topics discussed include domain analysis; the interaction between literary works, scholars, and library classification systems; and further research…

Discusses five common myths about statistical significance testing (SST), the possible erroneous and harmful contributions of SST to educational research, and suggested alternatives to SST for mathematics education research. (Contains 61 references.) (MKR)

The purpose of this study was to compare the results of an analysis of covariance design to a method developed by the authors called within-class regression. Application of this statistical method can be to any quasiexperimental design with a large number of groups. A test of statistical significance to use with the within-class regression…

The tests for zero partial association in a multiple contingency table have gained new importance with the introduction of graphical models. It is shown how these may be performed as exact conditional tests, using as test criteria either the ordinary likelihood ratio, the standard x squared statistic, or any other appropriate statistics. A…

THIS PAPER DEALS WITH SOME TESTS OF HYPOTHESIS FREQUENTLY ENCOUNTERED IN THE ANALYSIS OF MULTIVARIATE DATA. THE TYPE OF HYPOTHESIS CONSIDERED IS THAT WHICH THE STATISTICIAN CAN ANSWER IN THE NEGATIVE OR AFFIRMATIVE. THE DOOLITTLE METHOD MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO EVALUATE THE DETERMINANT OF A MATRIX OF HIGH ORDER, TO SOLVE A MATRIX EQUATION, OR TO…

The effects of the violation of the assumption of normality coupled with the condition of multicollinearity upon the outcome of testing the hypothesis Beta equals zero in the two-predictor regression equation is investigated. A monte carlo approach was utilized in which three differenct distributions were sampled for two sample sizes over…

Too few researchers understand what statistical significance testing does and does not do, and consequently their results are misinterpreted. This Digest explains the concept of statistical significance testing and discusses the meaning of probabilities, the concept of statistical significance, arguments against significance testing,…

The purpose of this study was to develop the Johnson-Neyman Procedure (JN-Procedure) appropriate to multiple groups and covariables, and demonstrate its use in the analysis of group differences. A sequence of significance tests which makes it possible to identify the most parsimonious analysis of group differences appropriate to a given set of…

Adherence to the arbitrary 0.05 level of significance as a benchmark for decisions about publishing research largely accounts for the popularity of one-tailed hypothesis tests. Effect size estimates, accompanied by confidence intervals or exact two-tailed probabilities, are generally more compatible with the growing meta-analytic view of social…