Stuck on p-values and I just dont seem to get them (dissertation question).

Hi I am re-writing my distertation and I am really stuck on this article "An Experimental Investigation of the Emotional and Motivational Impact of HPV Information in Adolescents". I really dont get the p-values bit if anyone out there would be happy to help that would be awesome. I can email the article? It is only three pages long and I just want someone to look at half a page which includes a results table. I really need to know how to read it...

Thanks Natalie
P.S. please email me at natzeh//hotmail.com

post the link to the page/stats/article here.

jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(09)00236-5/abstract

Sorry thats the best I can do because i access it through my uni account. thanks

This statistical analysis stuff is so hard! It's my weakness, and I am not the best person for the job of explaining it. This will help you: graphpad.com/articles/pvalue.htm. Remember that "mean" is a word that means the same thing as "average."

Also, keep in mind that the purpose of a p-value is to show if something is statistically significant.

It's kind of like this:
I do a study involving 100 chickens. I give them compliments and ask them to lay more eggs. I do this, and they seem to start laying more eggs! I get excited because I think my intervention led to a real result, but what if it was just a coincidence?

That is what statistical significance means. We use math to figure out how likely it is to have just been a coincidence.

Statisticians use math processes that I do not understand. They use them in order to determine statistical significance. They want to know if something they did caused a change to happen or if the change was not significant enough to justify thinking that the intervention is what caused the change.

:-) Does that help? This is not a great explanation, but you probably do not need to understand the whole process of calculating p-values. You just need to look at the results section to see if the results were shown to be statistically significant or not.

Read the results section again, and let me know if it says the results were statistically significant. Good luck! This kind of thing is hard.

Still can't see the article. I registered and all. I am now a "Nutrition Faculty" :] but I still have to subscribe to view the article... I'll email