Understanding The New Statistics

12

Power

I'm ambivalent about statistical power. On one hand, if we're using NHST, power is a vital part of research planning. Also, funding bodies and ethics review boards often require power calculations. On the other hand, power is defined in terms of NHST, so if we don't use NHST we can ignore power and instead use precision for research planning, as I discuss in Chapter 13. However, I feel it's still necessary to understand power, partly because power calculations are often required, and partly to help understand NHST and its weaknesses. I ...