The Abuse of Power

Abstract

It is well known that statistical power calculations can be valuable in planning an experiment. There is also a large literature advocating that power calculations be made whenever one performs a statistical test of a hypothesis and one obtains a statistically nonsignificant result. Advocates of such post-experiment power calculations claim the calculations should be used to aid in the interpretation of the experimental results. This approach, which appears in various forms, is fundamentally flawed. We document that the problem is extensive and present arguments to demonstrate the flaw in the logic.