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2 J. Experimental Criminology 1 (2006)

handle is hein.journals/jexpcrm2 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Experimental Criminology (2006) 2: 1-22 © Springer 2006 DOI: 10.1007/s11292-005-5129-7 Size matters: Standard errors in the application of null hypothesis significance testing in criminology and criminal justice SHAWN D. BUSHWAY* and GARY SWEETEN Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, 2220 LeFrak Hall, College Park, MD, 20742, USA *corresponding author: E-mail: sbushway@crim.umd.edu DAVID B. WILSON Administration of Justice Program, George Mason University, Manassas, VA, USA Abstract. Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST) has been a mainstay of the social sciences for empirically examining hypothesized relationships, and the main approach for establishing the importance of empirical results. NHST is the foundation of classical or frequentist statistics. The approach is designed to test the probability of generating the observed data if no relationship exists between the dependent and independent variables of interest, recognizing that the results will vary from sample to sample. This paper is intended to evaluate the state of the criminological and criminal justice literature with respect to the correct application of NHST. We apply a modified version of the instrument used in two reviews of the economics literature by McCloskey and Ziliak to code 82 articles in criminology and criminal justice. We have selected three sources of papers: Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and a recent review of experiments in criminal justice by Farrington and Welsh. We find that most researchers provide the basic information necessary to understand effect sizes and analytical significance in tables which include descriptive statistics and some standardized measure of size (e.g., betas, odds ratios). On the other hand, few of the articles mention statistical power and even fewer discuss the standards by which a finding would be considered large or small. Moreover, less than half of the articles distinguish between analytical significance and statistical significance, and most articles used the term 'significance' in ambiguous ways. Key words: criminal justice, criminology, Justice Quarterly, regression, review, significance, standard error, testing Introduction Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST) has been a mainstay of the social sciences for empirically examining hypothesized relationships, and the main approach for establishing the importance of empirical results. NHST is the foundation of classical or frequentist statistics founded by Fisher (the clearest statement is in Fisher 1935), and it has three key steps. First, a null hypothesis of no difference or no relationship is established with no specific alternative hypothesis specified. In the second step, a test statistic is calculated under a number of distributional assumptions. Finally, if the probability of obtaining the calculated test statistic is below a certain threshold (typically 0.05 in the social sciences), the

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