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This typically good science. You have hypothesis and test it, rather than doing an intervention and reporting every random thing that happened. Although I agre
by riedel 2y ago
This typically good science. You have hypothesis and test it, rather than doing an intervention and reporting every random thing that happened.
Although I agree in this case, the alternative hypothesis seems a bit lame, rather than adopting the null hypothesis. On the other hand I guess that more sleep could have some effect on cognitive development in the long run.
- IshKebab 2y agoYes but their conclusion is "well our hypothesis is probably still right, we just didn't look hard enough" rather than "maybe it doesn't have a significant effect".
- TOMDM 2y agoWell yes, that's just decent Bayesian rigor. Previous studies have set a prior of x% confidence, you see evidence to the contrary, you update to some x-y%. Given the volume of research on sleep, it probably takes more evidence, even if it's your own study to throw that out.
- IshKebab 2y agoAre there previous studies that have shown smartphone use impairs cognitive ability?
- II2II 2y agoYou can look at that statement in a couple of different ways. Yes, experimental bias is one of them. The other is saying: we didn't see this effect, so we need to do longer term studies to see if it does exist. Regardless, that statement is a good thing. It acknowledges a social bias towards the effect of smartphones. It doesn't give room for people to imply a result based upon that bias. On the surface, at least, it doesn't indicate that data was fudged to reach a particular result.
- n8henrie 2y ago"Might mean" is a far cry from "our hypothesis is probably still right." This type of speculation is commonplace -- even expected -- in the discussion section of an article. Not much different than the lame duck "further research is needed to..."
- hgomersall 2y agoWhy should the null hypothesis be preferred?