The Importance of the Research Question(s)

My first warning [in Chapter 18] concerns the quality of the research question(s) associated with the study you find yourself examining. If the study focuses on a trivial topic, no statistical procedure has the ability to "turn a sow's ear into a silk purse." This is as true of nonparametric procedures as it is of the parametric techniques discussed earlier in the book. Accordingly, I once again urge you to refrain from using data-based p-levels as the criterion for assessing the worth of empirical investigations.

(From Chapter 18, p. 496)

Copyright © 2003 Schuyler W. Huck
All rights reserved.