EXAMPLE 6.25

Journal survey of reported significance results. A survey of four journals published by the American Psychological Association showed that of 294 articles using statistical tests, only eight reported results that did not attain the 5% significance level.²⁷ It is very unlikely that these were the only eight studies of scientific merit that did not attain significance at the 0.05 level. Manuscripts describing other studies were likely rejected because of a lack of statistical significance or never submitted in the first place due to the expectation of rejection.