Case Studies for Evaluating Statistical Significance in Group Designs

Abstract

We present a tutorial for evaluating statistical significance in research reports when t, F , or X 2 is the primary statistic. The article is intended to help speech-language pathologists evaluate research conclusions so that they can decide if the result is meaningful for their practice. To this end, we explain the value of "practical significance" and describe the metric known as "effect size." The use of effect-size measures is illustrated in a variety of case studies that are drawn from the communication disorders literature.