Zhao, Chuhan2023-03-022023-03-022020https://unbscholar.lib.unb.ca/handle/1882/22329Null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) is and has been for many decades broadly applied across disciplines, NHST’s shortcomings have been identified and discussed since its introduction. Optimal alpha is a better method for setting statistical thresholds in NHST because it minimizes the overall probability of making errors. However, we don’t know how often using optimal α would result in a different conclusion than NHST. I calculate optimal α for 433 tests from 2009-2018 published marine biology papers and compare conclusions with NHST. I find totally 24 % of conflicting results (small ES: 22 %; medium ES: 22 %; large ES: 29 %). For disagreement, optimal alpha has 97 % significant results at small ES, 54% at medium and 24% at large. Low observed p value tends to have disagreement. These results mean that failing to use optimal alpha may be inflating the probability of making wrong conclusions in marine biology.text/xmlix, 83 pageselectronicen-CAhttp://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2bachelor thesisHoulahan, JeffBiology