Past and future American Psychological Association guidelines for statistical practice

Abstract

We review the publication guidelines of the American Psychological Association (APA) since 1929 and document their advice for authors about statistical practice. Although the advice has been extended with each revision of the guidelines, it has largely focused on null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) to the exclusion of other statistical methods. In parallel, we review over 40 years of critiques of NHST in psychology. Until now, the critiques have had little impact on the APA guidelines. The guidelines are influential in broadly shaping statistical practice, although in some cases recommended reporting practices are not closely followed. The guidelines have an important role to play in..