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It's well known what p-values show. But they are, in practice, used as a gatekeeping mechanism in academic journals in many fields (including mine). Worse, getting p<0.05 is informally seen as a measure of practical significance, rather than simply as one statistical test amongst many passed.

So yes, it is something you learn in introductory quantitative methods classes. But I don't think most researchers understand just how much it matters.

Also, a key R package for producing regression tables of coefficients for journal articles is called 'stargazer'. Given the unwarranted focus of many readers on those indicia of 'significant' results, I think it's well named.

I currently have the opposite problem. Given that I work with very large online datasets (N=1M or so) everything, including the random noise, is statistically significant to p<0.05. It really is effect sizes or busy at that point.



Real measures of practical significance are OR (odds ratio), effect size and dose response curve. Response histogram for statistical effects. (Or the 2D component analysis island histogram.)




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