Statistical Power and Effect Sizes of Clinical Neuropsychology Research
Authors:
Scott Bezeau; Roger Graves
DOI:
10.1076/jcen.23.3.399.1181
Publication Frequency:
10 issues per year
Published in:
Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology,
Volume
23,
Issue
3
June
2001
, pages 399
- 406
Subjects:
Clinical Neuropsychology;
Neuropsychology;
Formats available:
PDF
(English)
Previously published as:
Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology
(0168-8634)
until 1994
Previously published as:
Journal of Clinical Neuropsychology
(0165-0475)
until 1985
View Article:
View Article (PDF)
Abstract
Cohen, in a now classic paper on statistical power, reviewed articles in the 1960 issue of one psychology journal and determined that the majority of studies had less than a 5050 chance of detecting an effect that truly exists in the population, and thus of obtaining statistically significant results. Such low statistical power, Cohen concluded, was largely due to inadequate sample sizes. Subsequent reviews of research published in other experimental psychology journals found similar results. We provide a statistical power analysis of clinical neuropsychological research by reviewing a representative sample of 66 articles from the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology , the Journal of the International Neuropsychology Society , and Neuropsychology . The results show inadequate power, similar to that for experimental research, when Cohens criterion for effect size is used. However, the results are encouraging in also showing that the field of clinical neuropsychology deals with larger effect sizes than are usually observed in experimental psychology and that the reviewed clinical neuropsychology research does have adequate power to detect these larger effect sizes. This review also reveals a prevailing failure to heed Cohens recommendations that researchers should routinely report a priori power analyses, effect sizes and confidence intervals, and conduct fewer statistical tests.
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