Be critical

Don’t confuse significant with practically relevant

Saying that an effect or difference is significant can be misleading.

In daily life, significant means ‘large’, ‘substantial’ or ‘important’. In the realm of science, however, significant is a statistical term that means something different.

In fact, in science statistically significant outcomes are sometime insignificant from a practical perspective: even a tiny, weak, negligible effect or difference can be statistical significant.

BEWARE

Claims that results were significant often mean that they were statistically significant, which is NOT the same as important or practically relevant.