Course Retire statistical significance: a world beyond p<0.05

ECTS: 0.4

Course leader: Morten Schmidt

Language: English

Graduate school: Faculty of Health

Course fee: 480.00 DKK

Status: Course is finished

Semester: Fall 2022

Application deadline: 05/09/2022

Cancellation deadline: 05/09/2022

Course type: Classroom teaching

Start date: 13/09/2022

Administrator: Annette Poulsen

The course C312/01 Retire statistical significance: a world beyond p<0.05 is being offered by the Graduate School of Health, Aarhus University, fall 2022.

Criteria for participation: University degree in medicine, dentistry, nursing, or master’s degree in other fields and/or postgraduate research fellows (PhD students and research-year medical students).

Aim: To understand what a p-value is and what it is not. Misconceptions in the use of p-values and statistical significance will be covered. Recommendations on how to report and interpretate research results will be provided.

Learning outcomes: By the end of the course the student will be able to understand the pitfalls of p-values and interpretate research results in light of random error.

Workload: The full workload of the course is expected to be 9,5 hours.

Content: The course will use a combination of lectures, examples, and discussions to cover the following topics:

  • Elements of internal study validity (systematic and random errors)
  • Statistical concepts: statistical inference, hypothesis testing, p-values, confidence intervals, and p-value function
  • Clinical vs. statistical significance
  • Misconceptions on p-values and statistical significance
  • Key papers, persons, and arguments in the debate
  • Exceptions where p-values are needed (multiple comparisons and test for trends)
  • Recommendations on how to report and interpretate research results
  • Practical approach to rejection of a reviewer's recommendations to add p-values

Instructors: Morten Schmidt and Erik Parner

Venue: Campus, building 1231, 8000 Aarhus C

Participation in the course is without cost for:

  • PhD students, Health Research Year students and Health Research Honours Programme students from Aarhus University
  • PhD students enrolled at partner universities of the Nordoc collaboration
  • PhD students from other institutions in the open market agreement for PhD courses

Course dates:

  • 13 September 2022 08:00 - 16:00