A Gentle Introduction to the Comparison Between Null Hypothesis Testing and Bayesian Analysis: Reanalysis of Two Randomized Controlled Trials

Journal of Medical Internet Research
Marcus Bendtsen

Abstract

The debate on the use and misuse of P values has risen and fallen throughout their almost century-long existence in scientific discovery. Over the past few years, the debate has again received front-page attention, particularly through the public reminder by the American Statistical Association on how P values should be used and interpreted. At the core of the issue lies a fault in the way that scientific evidence is dichotomized and research is subsequently reported, and this fault is exacerbated by researchers giving license to statistical models to do scientific inference. This paper highlights a different approach to handling the evidence collected during a randomized controlled trial, one that does not dichotomize, but rather reports the evidence collected. Through the use of a coin flipping experiment and reanalysis of real-world data, the traditional approach of testing null hypothesis significance is contrasted with a Bayesian approach. This paper is meant to be understood by those who rely on statistical models to draw conclusions from data, but are not statisticians and may therefore not be able to grasp the debate that is primarily led by statisticians.

References

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Citations

May 6, 2020·The New England Journal of Medicine·Daniel Havlichek
Sep 25, 2020·Gastric Cancer : Official Journal of the International Gastric Cancer Association and the Japanese Gastric Cancer Association·Paula Jimenez-FonsecaJavier Gallego
May 6, 2020·The New England Journal of Medicine·Bin CaoChen Wang
Aug 28, 2020·Journal of Medical Internet Research·Marcus Bendtsen
Mar 18, 2021·Journal of Clinical Epidemiology·Marcus Bendtsen, Jim McCambridge
Oct 29, 2021·Cancer Investigation·Alberto Carmona-BayonasPavlos Msaouel
Dec 3, 2021·Intensive Care Medicine·Anders GranholmMorten Hylander Møller

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
medical procedure

Software Mentioned

AMADEUS
NEXit

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