P – VALUE, A TRUE TEST OF STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE? A CAUTIONARY NOTE

Authors

Tukur Dahiru (MBBS), FMCPH, Dip. HSM (Israel)

Correspondents

Dr. Tukur Dahiru
MBBS, FMCPH, Dip HSM (Israel)
DEPT OF COMMUNITY MEDICINE, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY,
ZARIA, NIGERIA.
Email:tukurdahiru@yahoo.com

Affiliation of Authors

DEPT OF COMMUNITY MEDICINE, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY,
ZARIA, NIGERIA.
Email:tukurdahiru@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT
While it’s not the intention of the founders of significance testing and hypothesis testing to have the two ideas intertwined as if they are complementary, the inconvenient marriage of the two practices into one coherent, convenient, incontrovertible and misinterpreted practice has dotted our standard statistics textbooks and medical journals.

This paper examine factors contributing to this practice, traced the historical evolution of the Fisherian and Neyman-Pearsonian schools of hypothesis testing, exposed the fallacies and the uncommon ground and
common grounds approach to the problem. Finally, it offers recommendations on what is to be done to remedy the situation.

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