The authors contend that most research in education lacks statistical power. They feel that the poor use of statistics as a tool for enhancing internal validity must be remediated. The adoption of a new convention is proposed in order to put statistical certainty into reasonable perspective. (RLV)

Three articles in this special issue explore issues related to the use and misuse of statistical significance testing, the major methodological issue in current educational research. Comments on these articles and rejoinders by the authors of the first three articles explore additional aspects of statistical significance testing. (SLD)

Although statistical significance testing as the sole basis for result interpretation is a flawed practice, significance tests can be useful as one of three criteria that must be demonstrated to establish a position empirically. Statistical significance testing provides evidence that an event did not happen by chance but gives no evidence of the…

Expresses a "middle-of-the-road" position on statistical significance testing, suggesting that it has its place but that confidence intervals are generally more useful. Identifies 10 errors of omission or commission in the papers reviewed that weaken the positions taken in their discussions. (SLD)

Controversy over the merits of Null Hypothesis Statistical Significance Testing (NHST) as a tool for advancing knowledge in the social sciences has intensified in recent years. Literature for and against the use of statistical significant tests is reviewed and three major limitations of these tests are summarized. The first is that "p"…

Procedures developed by Joreskog for studying similarities and differences in factor structures between different groups were applied to data from a study by Thurstoen to investigate the sampling stability of a hypothesized isolated configuration. The hypothesis of an isolated configuration was rejected but not by much. (Author/RC)

In his early exposition of path analysis, Duncan (1966) noted that the method "provides a calculus for indirect effects." Despite the interest in indirect causal effects, most users treat them as if they are population parameters and do not test whether they are statistically significant. Sobel (1982) has recently derived the asymptotic…

See TM 501 202-3 and EJ 060 883 for related articles. (MLP)

Treats the problem of testing an ordered hypothesis based on the ranks of the data. Statistical procedures for the randomized block design with more than one observation per cell are derived. Multiple comparisions and estimation procedures are included. (Author/RC)

The advantages of Goodman's Gamma, a measure of association, are discussed in reference to the Pearson coefficient of contingency. Both theoretical and practical advantages and disadvantages are discussed. An empirical comparison of the two measures shows that gamma detects significant relationships which chi square does not, and that gamma is…

Techniques for detecting synergistic effects in analysis of variance designs are presented and discussed. These techniques make it possible to apply some kinds of theoretical insights to the data analysis phase of a study: either by seeking synergistic effects implied or predicted by theory, or by seeking evidence of synergies as alternative…

Multivariate models are demonstrated to analyze repeated measures profile and growth curve data when univariate or multivariate mixed model assumptions are not tenable. Standard mixed model tests are recovered from certain multivariate hypotheses. The procedures are illustrated using numerical examples. (Author/RC)