6.3 Results of Statistical Tests

Here are some guidelines for reporting the results of statistical tests:

Your Methods section should clearly state the significance level (\(\alpha\)), and this should be decided prior to the study
Test statistics (e.g. Student’s t or an F from ANOVA) should be rounded to 2 decimal places, and associated P-values should report 3 decimal places, or if smaller than 0.001, then <0.001. P-values do not indicate effect size, so reporting \(P = 10^{-6}\) is not more impressive than P <0.001
Concluding statements should, in the absence of a table, include the test, test statistic value, degrees of freedom df or sample sizes, P-value, and confidence interval (if appropriate) in parentheses.
For example: "On average, hair loss was significantly greater among fathers compared to childless men (Welch’s 2-sample t-test; t = 4.23; n F = 18, n C = 20; P = 0.018; 95% CI for difference: 9.34 – 18.22%)."
Regression and ANOVA results should be shown in a standard ANOVA table format.

Example of ANOVA table format

Table 3.