Beyond Cohen's d: Alternative Effect Size Measures for Between-Subject Designs

Given the long history of discussion of issues surrounding statistical testing and effect size indices and various attempts by the American Psychological Association and by the American Educational Research Association to encourage the reporting of effect size, most journals in education and psychol...

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Published inThe Journal of experimental education Vol. 82; no. 1; pp. 22 - 50
Main Authors Peng, Chao-Ying Joanne, Chen, Li-Ting
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington Taylor & Francis Group 01.01.2014
Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Routledge
Taylor & Francis Inc
Subjects
Associative processes
Classification
Computation
Education
Educational Research
Effect Size
Error of Measurement
MEASUREMENT, STATISTICS, AND RESEARCH DESIGN
Meta Analysis
Psychology
robust
Robustness (Statistics)
Standard scores
Statistical Analysis
statistical assumptions
Statistical data
Statistics
Systematic review
typology
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Summary:Given the long history of discussion of issues surrounding statistical testing and effect size indices and various attempts by the American Psychological Association and by the American Educational Research Association to encourage the reporting of effect size, most journals in education and psychology have witnessed an increase in effect size reporting since 1999. Yet, effect size was often reported in three indices, namely, the unadjusted R 2 , Cohen's d, and η 2 with a simple labeling of small, medium, or large, according to Cohen's (1969) criteria. In this article, the authors present several alternatives to Cohen's d to help researchers conceptualize effect size beyond standardized mean differences for between-subject designs with two groups. The alternative effect size estimators are organized into a typology and are empirically contrasted with Cohen's d in terms of purposes, usages, statistical properties, interpretability, and the potential for meta-analysis. Several sound alternatives are identified to supplement the reporting of Cohen's d. The article concludes with a discussion of the choice of standardizers, the importance of assumptions, and the possibility of extending sound alternative effect size indices to other research contexts.
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ISSN:0022-0973
1940-0683
DOI:10.1080/00220973.2012.745471