Sorry everyone, but it didn't work (p = 0.06)
Davies, John and Ross, Alastair (2013) Sorry everyone, but it didn't work (p = 0.06). Addiction Research and Theory, 21 (4). pp. 348-355. ISSN 1606-6359
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The more or less ubiquitous use of Fisher-type statistics in quantitative/numeric evaluations of drug and alcohol education initiatives takes place within the context of a literature of long standing which suggests there are areas in which null hypothesis testing and the use of conventional cut-off points (i.e. the 1% and 5% probability levels) are inappropriate. This literature is largely ignored. The paper identifies some of these issues in terms of their relevance to the problems of evaluation of drug/alcohol programmes. The paper argues that the qualitative approach does not solve these problems but merely by-passes them, as well as being unsatisfactory in a number of ways. Thus, it is concluded that there is a pressing need for change in the type of quantitative approach adopted. Suggestions are made for a variety of exploratory methods, still involving broadly numerical analysis, which have a philosophical rather than a merely technical base, and which shed light on ‘what is going on’ rather than merely providing a binary decision (it worked/it did not work) derived from an arbitrary criterion for statistical significance and a null hypothesis which is usually known to be false from the start.
| Creators(s): | Davies, John and Ross, Alastair; | Item type: | Article |
|---|---|
| ID code: | 49480 |
| Keywords: | statistics, programme evaluation, methodology, Psychology, Medicine (miscellaneous) |
| Subjects: | Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > Psychology |
| Department: | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > School of Psychological Science and Health > Psychology |
| Depositing user: | Pure Administrator |
| Date deposited: | 02 Oct 2014 04:05 |
| Last modified: | 20 Jan 2021 21:30 |
| URI: | https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/49480 |
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