Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 14, 2026

Strategies for Assessing Autistic-Like Behaviors in Mice
Published on: September 20, 2024
Empirically supported treatments or type I errors? Problems with the analysis of data from group-administered
Scott A Baldwin1, David M Murray, William R Shadish
1Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA. s.baldwin@mac.com
Abstract:
When treatments are administered in groups, clients interact in ways that lead to violations of a key assumption of most statistical analyses-the assumption of independence of observations. The resulting dependencies, when not properly accounted for, can increase Type I errors dramatically. Of the 33 studies of group-administered treatment on the empirically supported treatments list, none appropriately analyzed their data. The current authors provide corrections that can be applied to improper analyses. After the corrections, only 12.4% to 68.2% of tests that were originally reported as significant remained significant, depending on what assumptions were made about how large the dependencies among observations really are. Of the 33 studies, 6-19 studies no longer had any significant results after correction. The authors end by providing recommendations for researchers planning group-administered treatment research.
Related Concept Videos
Errors In Hypothesis Tests
Systematic Error: Methodological and Sampling Errors
Sampling errors originate from improper sampling methods or the wrong sample population. These errors can be minimized by refining the sampling strategy. Defective instruments or faulty calibrations are the sources of instrumental...
Accuracy and Errors in Hypothesis Testing
In hypothesis testing, the probability of making a Type I error, denoted as α, is commonly set at 0.05. This significance level indicates a 5% chance...
Blind Procedures
Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast, controlled...
Bias
In statistics, a sampling bias is created when a sample is collected from a population, and some members of the population are not as likely to be chosen as others (remember, each member...
