For many years null hypothesis testing (NHT) has been the dominant form of statistical analysis in psychology. It has also been subject to periodic criticisms from within the field of psychology. In the past decade these occasional criticisms have turned into a more or less steady stream which have lead some to call for an outright ban on NHT in psychology, while others have called for greater use of alternative procedures. The solution lies neither in banning NHT nor in relying solely on alternative procedures, but in "reforming" NHT, replacing a-theoretical null hypotheses with theoretically meaningful hypotheses. Such reform requires that training of researchers emphasize parameter estimation and the testing of theoretical models, an approach that exists in some areas of psychology and appears to be common in other sciences. Such an emphasis will help ensure that the statistical hypothesis being tested matches the substantive hypothesis of interest. I will discuss the changes that are occurring in psychology and propose further changes that are still needed.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education