Abstract

Psychologists must be able to test both for the presence of an effect and for the absence of an effect. In addition to testing against zero, researchers can use the two one-sided tests (TOST) procedure to test for equivalence and reject the presence of a smallest effect size of interest (SESOI). The TOST procedure can be used to determine if an observed effect is surprisingly small, given that a true effect at least as extreme as the SESOI exists. We explain a range of approaches to determine the SESOI in psychological science and provide detailed examples of how equivalence tests should be performed and reported. Equivalence tests are an important extension of the statistical tools psychologists currently use and enable researchers to falsify predictions about the presence, and declare the absence, of meaningful effects.

Keywords

Equivalence (formal languages)Statistical hypothesis testingPsychologyComputer scienceEconometricsMathematicsStatisticsDiscrete mathematics

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Publication Info

Year
2018
Type
article
Volume
1
Issue
2
Pages
259-269
Citations
1426
Access
Closed

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Cite This

Daniël Lakens, Anne M. Scheel, Peder Mortvedt Isager (2018). Equivalence Testing for Psychological Research: A Tutorial. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science , 1 (2) , 259-269. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245918770963

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DOI
10.1177/2515245918770963

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Data completeness: 86%