The Relationship between Statistical Significance and the Effect Size - Assignment Example

Effect size Rice and Harris offer comprehensive differences and equivalences in effect size as used in the forensic psychology article, Law and Human Behavior. Gudjonsson and Haward also highlight the connection between effect size and arithmetical significance in their Nordic Journal of Psychiatry of 2009.

In statistical significance, the changes in behavior, attitude, and knowledge are attributable to chance and not the program. A test for statistical significance is conducted to determine if the random occurrences are not differential representative of program changes (Gudjonsson & Haward, 2009). Learning the statistical significance of the difference requires a comparison of the tested probability number with the already determined value of the critical probability.

Apparently, not all differences in statistically significant values are important or big. It is not even a guarantee that such values must aid decision-making (Rice & Harris, 2005). However, as a way of determining if the importance or strength of the observed difference is statistically significant, there is a need to compute the effect size. This is standardized making it easy to compare the usefulness of different programs on similar outcomes (Rice & Harris, 2005). Explain the importance of effect size in the statistical significance of the studies that were reviewedEffect size is useful in contextualizing the strength of the difference.

It would be difficult to draw conclusions in studies whose score results are large and tend to overlap (Rice & Harris, 2005). This is because the effect size is less significant. However, based on effect size, quantified calculations can establish the exact difference between variables (Gudjonsson & Haward, 2009).