In scholarly research, what does it mean when a finding is described as 'statistically significant at p < 0.05'?

Answer and explanation

Correct answer: C. Less than 5% probability that results occurred by chance under the null hypothesis

  1. Step 1: In null-hypothesis significance testing, the p-value measures the probability of obtaining test results at least as extreme as the observed results, assuming the null hypothesis is true.
  2. Step 2: A threshold of p < 0.05 indicates less than a 5% probability of observing the result by random chance alone, leading researchers to reject the null hypothesis.
Answer
Less than 5% probability that results occurred by chance under the null hypothesis.
Why not the others: 'The experimental intervention produced a 95% improvement in patient recovery time' confuses the significance level with effect size; 'Five percent of the experimental participants exhibited adverse side effects during the trial' confuses p-value with adverse event rate; 'The research findings have been accepted by 95% of peer reviewers in the discipline' misinterprets statistical metrics as reviewer consensus.

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