Overcoming feelings of powerlessness in "aging" researchers: a primer on statistical power in analysis of variance designs.

ABSTRACT

A general rationale and specific procedures for examining the statistical power characteristics of psychology-of-aging empirical studies are provided. First, 4 basic ingredients of statistical hypothesis testing are reviewed. Then, 2 measures of effect size are introduced (standardized mean differences and the proportion of variation accounted for by the effect of interest), and methods are given for estimating these measures from already-completed studies. Power and sample size formulas, examples, and discussion are provided for common comparison-of-means designs, including independent samples I-factor and factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) design, analysis of covariance designs, repeated measures (correlated samples) ANOVA designs, and split-plot (combined between- and within-subjects) ANOVA designs. Because of past conceptual differences, special attention is given to the power associated with statistical interactions, and cautions about applying the various procedures are indicated. Illustrative power estimations also are applied to a published study from the literature. It is argued that psychology-of-aging researchers will be both better informed consumers of what they read and more "empowered" with respect to what they research by understanding the important roles played by power and sample size in statistical hypothesis testing.