ArticlePloS one2019
The quest for an optimal alpha.
Article in PloS one, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed.
- Effectiveness of a dental simulation game on reducing pain and anxiety during primary molars pulpotomy compared with tell-show-do technique in pediatric patients: a randomized clinical trial.BMC oral health · 2024Trial
- Online Sexual Harassment, Disordered Eating Attitudes, and Body Shame in Young Women.Violence against women · 2026Article
- Effectiveness of Camouflaged Syringe on Dental Anxiety and Pain During Maxillary Local Anesthesia in Children: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial.International journal of dentistry · 2026Article
- Effectiveness of Thumb Sleeve Distraction and Pop-It Therapeutic Play in Reducing Dental Anxiety and Pain in Children Aged 4-6 Years Undergoing Mandibular Alveolar Nerve Block: A Randomized Controlled Trial.International journal of dentistry · 2026Article
- SGLT2 inhibitors do not cause de novo urinary incontinence in diabetic female patients with chronic kidney disease.International urology and nephrology · 2025Article
- On the effect of flexible adjustment of the p value significance threshold on the reproducibility of randomized clinical trials.PloS one · 2025Article
- Article
- Analysis of the Use of Sample Size and Effect Size Calculations in a Temporomandibular Disorders Randomised Controlled Trial-Short Narrative Review.Journal of personalized medicine · 2024Review
- Can expected error costs justify testing a hypothesis at multiple alpha levels rather than searching for an elusive optimal alpha?PloS one · 2024Article
- A tutorial on using the paired t test for power calculations in repeated measures ANOVA with interactions.Behavior research methods · 2023Article
- Risk factors for agitation in home-cared older adults with dementia: evidence from 640 elders in East China.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Article
- Medical student residency preferences and motivational factors: a longitudinal, single-institution perspective.BMC medical education · 2022Article
- Homeowner perceptions and responses to buffelgrass invasion risk in the Tucson, Arizona Wildland-Urban Interface.Heliyon · 2021Article
- Poised for Change: University Students Are Positively Disposed toward Food Waste Diversion and Decrease Individual Food Waste after Programming.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- The electrophysiological underpinnings of variation in verbal working memory capacity.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Article
- Low replicability can support robust and efficient science.Nature communications · 2020Article
- The Supporting Role of Mentees' Peers in Online Mentoring: A Longitudinal Social Network Analysis of Peer Influence.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- Developing and validating an accelerated online Canadian training in data science for the health sciences community.Digital healthArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Researchers who analyze data within the framework of null hypothesis significance testing must choose a critical "alpha" level, α, to use as a cutoff for deciding whether a given set of data demonstrates the presence of a particular effect. In most fields, α = 0.05 has traditionally been used as the standard cutoff. Many researchers have recently argued for a change to a more stringent evidence cutoff such as α = 0.01, 0.005, or 0.001, noting that this change would tend to reduce the rate of false positives, which are of growing concern in many research areas. Other researchers oppose this proposed change, however, because it would correspondingly tend to increase the rate of false negatives. We show how a simple statistical model can be used to explore the quantitative tradeoff between reducing false positives and increasing false negatives. In particular, the model shows how the optimal α level depends on numerous characteristics of the research area, and it reveals that although α = 0.05 would indeed be approximately the optimal value in some realistic situations, the optimal α could actually be substantially larger or smaller in other situations. The importance of the model lies in making it clear what characteristics of the research area have to be specified to make a principled argument for using one α level rather than another, and the model thereby provides a blueprint for researchers seeking to justify a particular α level.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.