EFFECT SIZE - A MAGIC WAND FOR FICKLE P-VALUE IN EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Abstract

Inappropriate representation of statistical significance as p value ≤0.05 is a convention in experimental biological research. Such convention in Medical Science research led to statistical fallacy with risk to life of people in reality. This convention which often ignores the sample size, compromises with the Type II error that directly confers fallacy to biological findings explained only on p value. One way to overcome such situation is to incorporation of effect size in the analysis. In this article, the need of addressing effect size in experimental research has been explained. A summary of use and interpretation of various measures of effect size has also been outlined.