Justify Your Alpha
This project responds to the widely discussed proposal by Benjamin et al. (2018, Nature Human Behaviour) to redefine statistical significance by lowering the conventional alpha threshold to p ≤ .005. Rather than adopting a single fixed threshold, the collaborating authors argue that researchers should transparently report and justify the alpha level chosen for a given study, treating the significance threshold as a design decision that depends on context rather than a universal constant.
Sau-Chin Chen is a co-author of this large multi-author methodology project, which brought together statisticians and methodologists across many institutions to formulate a shared position on error control in study design. The resulting paper, Justify your alpha, was published in Nature Human Behaviour (2018).
The project’s significance lies in shifting the debate on statistical significance away from a search for a single “correct” threshold and toward a broader emphasis on transparency and justification in research design choices, a position that has since informed wider discussions of statistical practice.
Status: Stable — completed and archived on OSF.