Freda is reading a journal article in psychology, and sees that a statistically significant outcome would have occurred by chanc
e alone less than 5 out of 100 times. This statement would be summarized in the journal article as ___________. a. p>.05
b. p<.05
c. p=5%
d. p x 5 = 100
In statistics, p<0.05 mean that the probability of a statistically significant outcome to occur by chance and not by the effect of the treatment is less that 5 in 100 samples or subjects. Thus must researchers set their significant level at 5% (0.05), any treatment mean whose probability is less than 0.05 is regarded as significant and those whose probability value is higher than 0.05 is considered as not significant. The implication of this is that a treatment with a probability level higher than 0.05 means that the probability of the significant outcome to be due to chance is higher than 5 in 100 while that with a probability lesser than 0.05 means that the probability of that significant outcome to be due to chance is lower than 5 in 100.
