Do You Really Want to Test a Hypothesis?

I’ve uploaded one of my favorite lectures in the my new MOOC “Improving Your Statistical Questions” to YouTube. It asks the question whether you really want to test a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a very specific tool to answer a very specific question. I like hypothesis tests, because in experimental psychology it is common to perform lines of research where you can design a bunch of studies that test simple predictions about the presence or absence of differences on some measure. I think they have a role to play in science. I also think hypothesis testing is widely overused. As we are starting to do hypothesis tests better (e.g., by preregistering our predictions and controlling our error rates in more severe tests) I predict many people will start to feel a bit squeamish as they become aware that doing hypothesis tests as they were originally designed to be used isn’t really want they want in their research. One of the often overlooked gains in teaching people how to do something well, is that they finally realize that they actually don’t want to do it.

The lecture “Do You Really Want to Test a Hypothesis” aims to explain which question a hypothesis tests asks, and discusses when a hypothesis tests answers a question you are interested in. It is very easy to say what not to do, or to point out what is wrong with statistical tools. Statistical tools are very limited, even under ideal circumstances. It’s more difficult to say what you can do. If you follow my work, you know that this latter question is what I spend my time on. Instead of telling you optional stopping can’t be done because it is p-hacking, I explain how you can do it correctly through sequential analysis. Instead of telling you it is wrong to conclude the absence of an effect from p > 0.05, I explain how to use equivalence testing­­. Instead of telling you p-values are the devil, I explain how they answer a question you might be interested in when used well. Instead of saying preregistration is redundant, I explain from which philosophy of science preregistration has value. And instead of saying we should abandon hypothesis tests, I try to explain in this video how to use them wisely. This is all part of my ongoing #JustifyEverything educational tour. I think it is a reasonable expectation that researchers should be able to answer at least a simple ‘why’ question if you ask why they use a specific tool, or use a tool in a specific manner.

This might help to move beyond the simplistic discussion I often see about these topics. If you ask me if I prefer frequentist of Bayesian statistics, or confirmatory or exploratory research, I am most likely to respond 無 (see Wikipedia). It is tempting to think about these topics in a polarized either-or mindset – but then you would miss asking the real questions. When would any approach give you meaningful insights? Just as not every hypothesis test is an answer to a meaningful question, so will not every exploratory study provide interesting insights. The most important question to ask yourself when you plan a study is ‘when will the tools you use lead to interesting insights’? In the second week of my MOOC I discuss when effects in hypothesis tests could be deemed meaningful, but the same question applies to exploratory or descriptive research. Not all exploration is interesting, and we don’t want to simply describe every property of the world. Again, it is easy to dismiss any approach to knowledge generation, but it is so much more interesting to think about which tools will lead to interesting insights. And above all, realize that in most research lines, researchers will have a diverse set of questions that they want to answer given practical limitations, and they will need to rely on a diverse set of tools, limitations and all.

In this lecture I try to explain what the three limitations are of hypothesis tests, and the very specific question they try to answer. If you like to think about how to improve your statistical questions, you might be interested in enrolling in my free MOOC “Improving Your Statistical Questions”.