Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Mar 20.
Published in final edited form as: Am Stat. 2019 Mar 20;73(Suppl 1):82–90. doi: 10.1080/00031305.2018.1537891

Table 1:

Criteria for a Lasting Framework for Inference Beyond p < 0.05

Criterion p < 0.05 Meeting Criterion Does p < 0.005 Meet Criterion?
Provides quantitative basis to address uncertainty p-value varies with precision of estimator Same as p < 0.05
Rewards increased precision Significance achieved more easily with higher sample size Same as p < 0.05
Matches intuitive understanding Statistic akin to p-value developed several times Stricter threshold easily understood, but requires departure from current intuition
Advocated by statisticians and non-statisticians Promoted by Fisher, his students, and scientists in a variety of fields Supported by some statisticians and practitioners, but value still disputed
Computationally feasible for non-statisticians Fisher and Yates made tables user-friendly and accessible to scientists and practitioners Any threshold feasible with modern software
Responsive to changing conditions p < 0.05 met needs of a time when few tests were conducted while varying thresholds allowed responses to multiple testing Addresses current preponderance of tests, but viewed by advocates as a stopgap measure