Research

Question 1

Why can a research finding be statistically significant yet practically insignificant?

Answer 1

Statistical significance relates to whether an effect exists and how likely this effect is due to chance. To establish practical significance and how meaningful the results are, we must take into account the context of the study and the magnitude of the results. If the effect is small, in reality, there may be very little practical application to the results.

Question 2

Why does within-subject design generally have higher statistical power than a between-subject design?

Answer 2

A within-subject design generally has higher statistical power than a between-subject design, because a within-subject design controls for genetic differences and other factors that vary across people, such as diets and lifestyle.

Question 3

Define statistical power.

Answer 3

The ability to detect an effect with a study when there is truly an effect.It is the sensitivity of a test.

Question 4

Explain ‘correlations’

Answer 4

R is the correlation between two variables. R-square is the proportion of variance in the dependent variable that can predict the changes in the independent variable. Correlation is not causation.

Question 5

What are ‘effect sizes’?

Answer 5

raw values, a standardized measure of the strength of an effect

Question 6

What are p-values?

Answer 6

p-values measure the probability of obtaining all results in the study, or even greater effects, under the assumption that all the statistical model’s assumptions are correct, including the null hypothesis.

Question 7

What is statistical significance?

Answer 7

Statistical significance means there is most likely a true difference between groups, not just between-subject variance or measurement error. Assuming the study was well-designed (high internal validity), we can conclude this effect was caused by the independent variable of the study and, for example, Program A was more effective than Program B.

Question 8

The best search engines to find research.

Answer 8

Google Scholar, PubMed, SciELO

Question 9

name some Google search operators

Answer 9

1) Use quotes to search keywords in that exact order;
2) Use Search Operators “AND” and “OR” to logically combine keywords. “NOT” (the equivalent of the minus sign on Google) - to exclude keywords (example: women OR female -men -male “strength training” OR “resistance training”
3) Use “before:[year]” and “after:[year]”. Example: “after:2018”
4) When you’re looking for the full text of a paper, you can add “filetype:pdf”” to your search. This limits the search to PDF files.