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March 26, 2007
The difference between "significant" and "not significant" is not itself statistically significant
Ben Jann writes,
I came across your paper on the difference between significant and non-significant results. My experience is that this misinterpretation is made in about every second talk I hear and also appears in a lot of published work.Let me point you to an example in a prominent sociological journal. The references are:
Wu, Xiaogang and Yu Xie. 2003. "Does the Market Pay Off? Earnings Returns to Education in Urban China." American Sociological Review 68:425-42.
and the comment
Jann, Ben. 2005. "Earnings Returns to Education in Urban China: A Note on Testing Difference among Groups." American Sociological Review 70:860-864.
Posted by Andrew at March 26, 2007 12:49 AM
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Comments
And here's another example:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/329/7477/1259
Luckily, it's in the BMJ, which means that you can post a "rapid response" comment, which appears on the web page with the paper.
Posted by: Jeremy Miles at March 26, 2007 2:13 PM.