Teaching hypothesis tests--time for significant change?

Full Abstract

Confusion in the teaching of statistical inference dates back to the conflict of Fisher's P-values and significance tests with the Neyman-Pearson hypothesis testing approach. To avoid the well-known pitfalls arising from over-reliance on significance tests and the division of results into 'significant' or 'not significant', many medical journals now insist that presentation of statistical analyses includes confidence intervals as well as or instead of P-values. The confusion over how to report statistical analyses which is evident in the recent medical literature is matched by divergent teaching of hypothesis tests between the 16 U.K. medical schools represented at the April 2000 Burwalls meeting. Suggested guidelines for the teaching of statistical inference to medical students are presented, and possible future developments are discussed.Copyright 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Author information

Author/s: Sterne, Jonathan A C (JA);

Affiliation: Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Canynge Hall, Whiteladies Road, Bristol BS8 2PR, UK. jonathan.sterne(-atsign-)bristol.ac.uk

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Statistics in medicine (Stat Med), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Apr; vol 21 (issue 7) : pp 985-94; discussion 995-999, 1001

Dates: Created 2002/03/28; Completed 2003/05/22; Revised 2007/11/15;

PMID: 11921006, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Confidence Intervals
Decision Support Techniques
Education, Medical, Undergraduate - methods
Great Britain
Guidelines as Topic

Guidelines as Topic
Humans
Research - statistics & numerical data
Statistics as Topic - education
Teaching - methods

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