Statistical methods in psychology journals: Guidelines and explanations.

n the light of continuing debate over the applications of significance testing in psychology journals and following the publication of Cohens (1994) article, the Board of Scientific Affairs (BSA) of the American Psychological Association (APA) convened a committee called the Task Force on Statistical Inference (TFSI) whose charge was to elucidate some of the controversial issues surrounding applications of statistics including significance testing and its alternatives; alternative underlying models and data transformation; and newer methods made possible by powerful computers (BSA, personal communication, February 28, 1996). Robert Rosenthal, Robert Abelson, and Jacob Cohen (cochairs) met initially and agreed on the desirability of having several types of specialists on the task force: statisticians, teachers of statistics, journal editors, authors of statistics books, computer experts, and wise elders. Nine individuals were subsequently invited to join and all agreed.