The DOI matches its Crossref record; 28 of the 28 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Stepwise Model Fitting and Statistical Inference: Turning Noise into Signal Pollution
Open accessAbstract
Statistical inference based on stepwise model selection is applied regularly in ecological, evolutionary, and behavioral research. In addition to fundamental shortcomings with regard to finding the "best" model, stepwise procedures are known to suffer from a multiple-testing problem, yet the method is still widely used. As an illustration of this problem, we present results of a simulation study of artificial data sets of uncorrelated variables, with two to 10 predictor variables and one dependent variable. We then compared results from stepwise regression with a regression model in which all predictor variables were entered simultaneously. These analyses clearly demonstrate that significance tests based on stepwise procedures lead to greatly inflated Type I error rates (i.e., the probability of erroneously rejecting a true null hypothesis). By using a simple simulation design, our study amplifies previous warnings about using stepwise procedures, and we follow others in recommending that biologists refrain from applying these methods.
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Cites
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Cited by
Burnham, K. P., Anderson, D. R., & Huyvaert, K. P. (2011) · Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology · doi:10.1007/s00265-010-1029-6 · Cited by 4,104
Forstmeier, W., & Schielzeth, H. (2011) · Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology · doi:10.1007/s00265-010-1038-5 · Cited by 1,120
Detecting and avoiding likely false‐positive findings – a practical guide
Forstmeier, W., Wagenmakers, E., & Parker, T. H. (2017) · Biological Reviews · doi:10.1111/brv.12315 · Cited by 436
Estimating and controlling for spatial structure in the study of ecological communities
Peres‐Neto, P. R., & Legendre, P. (2010) · Global Ecology and Biogeography · doi:10.1111/j.1466-8238.2009.00506.x · Cited by 443
Tank, D. C., Eastman, J. M., Pennell, M. W., Soltis, P. S., Soltis, D. E., Hinchliff, C. E., Brown, J. W., Sessa, E. B., & Harmon, L. J. (2015) · New Phytologist · doi:10.1111/nph.13491 · Cited by 364
Metadata
- Authors
- Mundry, R., & Nunn, C. L.
- Venue
- The American Naturalist
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Published
- 2009-01
- Volume
- 173
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 119-123
- ISSN
- 0003-0147 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-5323
- OpenAlex
- W2167122694
- Cited by
- 440
- References
- 28
- FWCI
- 19.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
