Persistent Controversy in Statistical Approaches in Wildlife Sciences: A Perspective of Students
The controversy over the use of null hypothesis statistical testing (NHST) has persisted for decades, yet NHST remains the most widely used statistical approach in wildlife sciences and ecology. A disconnect exists between those opposing NHST and many wildlife scientists and ecologists who conduct a...
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Published in | The Journal of wildlife management Vol. 71; no. 7; pp. 2142 - 2144 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Oxford, UK
The Wildlife Society
01.09.2007
Blackwell Publishing Ltd |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The controversy over the use of null hypothesis statistical testing (NHST) has persisted for decades, yet NHST remains the most widely used statistical approach in wildlife sciences and ecology. A disconnect exists between those opposing NHST and many wildlife scientists and ecologists who conduct and publish research. This disconnect causes confusion and frustration on the part of students. We, as students, offer our perspective on how this issue may be addressed. Our objective is to encourage academic institutions and advisors of undergraduate and graduate students to introduce students to various statistical approaches so we can make well-informed decisions on the appropriate use of statistical tools in wildlife and ecological research projects. We propose an academic course that introduces students to various statistical approaches (e.g., Bayesian, frequentist, Fisherian, information theory) to build a foundation for critical thinking in applying statistics. We encourage academic advisors to become familiar with the statistical approaches available to wildlife scientists and ecologists and thus decrease bias towards one approach. Null hypothesis statistical testing is likely to persist as the most common statistical analysis tool in wildlife science until academic institutions and student advisors change their approach and emphasize a wider range of statistical methods. |
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Bibliography: | istex:480F6C3F9AF70663E71D7AF5D743F5425D4D9BC9 ArticleID:JWMG245 ark:/67375/WNG-XDLM1K1J-J E‐mail jbutcher@tamu.edu ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0022-541X 1937-2817 |
DOI: | 10.2193/2007-201 |