Tips for Reporting P Values, Confidence Intervals, and Power Analyses in Health Professions Education Research: Just Do It!

By: Colin P. West, MD, PhD, Eduardo F. Abbott, MD, and David A. Cook, MD, MHPE Basic statistical results, including P values, confidence intervals, and power analyses, are variably reported in scientific publications and frequently misunderstood or misapplied. In our current article, Abbott et al, we examined the current prevalence and evolution over time in reporting of P values, confidence intervals, and power analyses in health professions education research (HPER) publications. We found reporting of P values and confidence intervals in HPER publications increased from the 1970s to 2015, and in 2015, P values were reported in most HPER abstracts and main texts of published research papers. However, reporting of confidence intervals and power analyses remained uncommon and lagged behind reporting in general biomedical research. In addition, most reported P values were statistically significant according to the standard threshold of P ≤ .05, which seems likely to reflect selective (biased) reporting. Several general recommendations stem from these results. First, more detailed quantitative reporting of key statistical results is needed in both abstracts and main texts of HPER publications. Basic descriptive results (which, depending on the situation, might include group means, proportions, and/or effect size measures, such as differences between means, relative risks, odds ratios, regression parameter estimates, and correlation coefficients) should be reported to allow rea...
Source: Academic Medicine Blog - Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Tags: Featured Guest Perspective health professions education research statistics Source Type: blogs