Researchers Misunderstand Confidence Intervals and Standard Error Bars

Little is known about researchers' understanding of confidence intervals (CIs) and standard error (SE) bars. Authors of journal articles in psychology, behavioral neuroscience, and medicine were invited to visit a Web site where they adjusted a figure until they judged 2 means, with error bars,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPsychological methods Vol. 10; no. 4; pp. 389 - 396
Main Authors Belia, Sarah, Fidler, Fiona, Williams, Jennifer, Cumming, Geoff
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States American Psychological Association 01.12.2005
Subjects
Authors
Computer Literacy
Confidence Intervals
Data Interpretation, Statistical
Error of Measurement
Humans
Intervals
Medicine
Misconceptions
Neuropsychology
Psychological Studies
Research - statistics & numerical data
Researchers
Standard 17
Statistical Significance
Web Sites
Online AccessGet more information

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Summary:Little is known about researchers' understanding of confidence intervals (CIs) and standard error (SE) bars. Authors of journal articles in psychology, behavioral neuroscience, and medicine were invited to visit a Web site where they adjusted a figure until they judged 2 means, with error bars, to be just statistically significantly different (p less than 0.05). Results from 473 respondents suggest that many leading researchers have severe misconceptions about how error bars relate to statistical significance, do not adequately distinguish CIs and SE bars, and do not appreciate the importance of whether the 2 means are independent or come from a repeated measures design. Better guidelines for researchers and less ambiguous graphical conventions are needed before the advantages of CIs for research communication can be realized.
ISSN:1082-989X
1939-1463
DOI:10.1037/1082-989X.10.4.389