statistical significance

n. Statistical significance refers to a decision about whether a trend observed in sample data exists in the population at large. By convention, researchers usually adhere to a decision criterion of p = .05 for determining statistical significance. Statistical significance does not necessarily indicate practical significance: if a trend in the data is “significant” from a statistical standpoint, that significance indicates only that a relationship observed in the sample is likely to exist in the population at large. In many cases, effects that are statistically significant are of such small magnitude that they lack any practical meaning or implications. One emerging trend in psychological research is to examine carefully the magnitude of trends in the data, known as effect sizes, alongside traditional significance tests. – MWP

▶ See also P-VALUE and SIGNIFICANCE TEST