Question

A public school system wanted to know whether the reading levels of the students at two of its schools were different. The study that was conducted tested an enormous number of students, and concluded that students attending School A scored significantly higher than those attending School B. However, the difference between the means of the two schools was very small. What should you conclude regarding the difference in reading levels between the two schools? Explain your conclusion. Write your answer to a person who is familiar with the basic logic of hypothesis testing, but knows nothing about power.

Answer 1

In this study, statistical significance was achieved while testing the scores between the two schools, however this doesn't mean that it implies clinical significance. There's a clear distinction between statistical and clinical significance and one doesn't follow the other.  We all know that the study indicated that the results indicated that we had a powerful proof against the null hypothesis however vital results doesn't mean that the variations were massive enough to form a clinical conclusion.

An out-sized study has the tendency to find even tiny variations as vital results however with if we talk clinically, these findings were not so relevant. This was a case here as this study was done on huge amount of students. Therefore, clinical significance is vital instead of statistical significance and that we will not entirely just rely on the statistical significance.