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Cited by 317

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 33 of the 33 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

In defense of P values

Murtaugh, Paul A.·2014·Ecology
DOI 10.1890/13-0590.1
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Abstract

Statistical hypothesis testing has been widely criticized by ecologists in recent years. I review some of the more persistent criticisms of P values and argue that most stem from misunderstandings or incorrect interpretations, rather than from intrinsic shortcomings of the P value. I show that P values are intimately linked to confidence intervals and to differences in Akaike's information criterion (ΔAIC), two metrics that have been advocated as replacements for the P value. The choice of a threshold value of ΔAIC that breaks ties among competing models is as arbitrary as the choice of the probability of a Type I error in hypothesis testing, and several other criticisms of the P value apply equally to ΔAIC. Since P values, confidence intervals, and ΔAIC are based on the same statistical information, all have their places in modern statistical practice. The choice of which to use should be stylistic, dictated by details of the application rather than by dogmatic, a priori considerations.

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Metadata

Authors
Murtaugh, P. A.
Venue
Ecology
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2014-03
Volume
95
Issue
3
Pages
611-617
ISSN
  • 0012-9658 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-9170
DOI
10.1890/13-0590.1
OpenAlex
W2037592609
Cited by
317
References
33
FWCI
33.68
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: In defense of P values. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1890/13-0590.1
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Murtaugh, P. A. (2014). In defense of P values. Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-0590.1

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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.