Robust misinterpretation of confidence intervals
Robust misinterpretation of confidence intervals
复制标题
DOI：
10.3758/s13423-013-0572-3
复制
发表时间：
2014-10-01
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hoekstra, Rink;Morey, Richard D.;Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan
假设显著性检验（NHST）无疑是社会科学中最常用的证明主张的推理技术。然而，即使是NHST的坚定捍卫者也同意其结果经常被误解。置信区间（CI）经常被提议作为NHST的一个更有用的替代方案，阿帕手册强烈鼓励使用它。然而，很少有人知道研究人员如何解释CI。在这项研究中，120名研究人员和442名学生-都在心理学领域-被要求评估的真理价值的六个特定的陈述涉及不同的解释CI。虽然所有六个陈述都是错误的，但研究人员和学生平均赞同三个以上的陈述，这表明对CI的严重误解。自我宣称的统计学经验与研究人员的表现无关，更令人惊讶的是，研究人员几乎没有超过学生，即使学生没有接受过任何统计推断的教育。我们的研究结果表明，许多研究人员不知道CI的正确解释。围绕p值和CI的误解尤其令人遗憾，因为它们构成了心理学家从数据中得出结论的主要工具。
Null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) is undoubtedly the most common inferential technique used to justify claims in the social sciences. However, even staunch defenders of NHST agree that its outcomes are often misinterpreted. Confidence intervals (CIs) have frequently been proposed as a more useful alternative to NHST, and their use is strongly encouraged in the APA Manual. Nevertheless, little is known about how researchers interpret CIs. In this study, 120 researchers and 442 students-all in the field of psychology-were asked to assess the truth value of six particular statements involving different interpretations of a CI. Although all six statements were false, both researchers and students endorsed, on average, more than three statements, indicating a gross misunderstanding of CIs. Self-declared experience with statistics was not related to researchers' performance, and, even more surprisingly, researchers hardly outperformed the students, even though the students had not received any education on statistical inference whatsoever. Our findings suggest that many researchers do not know the correct interpretation of a CI. The misunderstandings surrounding p-values and CIs are particularly unfortunate because they constitute the main tools by which psychologists draw conclusions from data.