Practical Significance: A Concept Whose Time Has Come

Abstract

Statistical significance is concerned with whether a research result is due to chance or sampling variability; practical significance is concerned with whether the result is useful in the real world. A growing awareness of the limitations of null hypothesis significance tests has led to a search for ways to supplement these procedures. A variety of supplementary measures of effect magnitude have been proposed. The use of these procedures in four APA journals is examined, and an approach to assessing the practical significance of data is described.