AUTHOR=Badenes-Ribera Laura , Frias-Navarro Dolores , Iotti Bryan , Bonilla-Campos Amparo , Longobardi Claudio TITLE=Misconceptions of the p-value among Chilean and Italian Academic Psychologists JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=7 YEAR=2016 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01247 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01247 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=

Common misconceptions of p-values are based on certain beliefs and attributions about the significance of the results. Thus, they affect the professionals' decisions and jeopardize the quality of interventions and the accumulation of valid scientific knowledge. We conducted a survey on 164 academic psychologists (134 Italian, 30 Chilean) questioned on this topic. Our findings are consistent with previous research and suggest that some participants do not know how to correctly interpret p-values. The inverse probability fallacy presents the greatest comprehension problems, followed by the replication fallacy. These results highlight the importance of the statistical re-education of researchers. Recommendations for improving statistical cognition are proposed.