EXAMPLE 6.26

A meaningful but statistically insignificant result. A sample of size 10 gave a correlation of r = 0.5 between two variables. The P-value is 0.102 for a two-sided significance test. In many situations, a correlation this large would be interesting and worthy of additional study. When it takes a lot of effort (say, in terms of time or money) to obtain samples, researchers often use small studies like these as pilot projects to gain interest from various funding sources. With financial support, a larger, more powerful study can then be run.