Publication Decisions Revisited: The Effect of the Outcome of Statistical Tests on the Decision to Publish and Vice Versa
- 1 February 1995
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in The American Statistician
- Vol. 49 (1), 108-112
- https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.1995.10476125
Abstract
This article presents evidence that published results of scientific investigations are not a representative sample of results of all scientific studies. Research studies from 11 major journals demonstrate the existence of biases that favor studies that observe effects that, on statistical evaluation, have a low probability of erroneously rejecting the so-called null hypothesis (H 0). This practice makes the probability of erroneously rejecting H 0 different for the reader than for the investigator. It introduces two biases in the interpretation of the scientific literature: one due to multiple repetition of studies with false hypothesis, and one due to failure to publish smaller and less significant outcomes of tests of a true hypotheses. These practices distort the results of literature surveys and of meta-analyses. These results also indicate that practice leading to publication bias have not changed over a period of 30 years.Keywords
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