"Why we don't really know what statistical significance means: Implications for educators"

Raymond Hubbard is the Thomas M. Sheehan Distinguished Professor of Marketing in the College of Business and Public Administration at Drake University. He can be contacted at: raymond.hubbard@drake.eduIn marketing journals and market research textbooks, two concepts of statistical significance - p values and α levels - are commonly mixed together. This is unfortunate because they each have completely different interpretations. The upshot is that many investigators are confused over the meaning of statistical significance. We explain how this confusion has arisen and make several suggestions to teachers and researchers about how to overcome it. © 2006 Sage Publications