Answer to Question #66250 in Statistics and Probability for Mary Young

Question

When a newspaper or magazine article reports the results of a study and draws a conclusion without also reporting whether the results are statistically significant, what are the possible reasons for doing so? How seriously should you take the conclusion offered in such a study? Discuss.

Answer 1

When a newspaper or magazine article reports the results of a study and draws a conclusion without also reporting whether the results are statistically significant, then the possible reasons for doing so may be either providing some usual information about some events, that don't need to be analyzed, or writing some article with a subjective point of view, which shouldn't be considered as a fact, but as an opinion of the author. You shouldn't take the conclusion offered in such a study seriously, if this study tries to cover and analyze really serious topic.