Clinical Significance in Psychological and Educational Research: Does it Matter?

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to confirm the importance of the concept of clinical significance. Also, this study aimed at discriminating among the concepts statistical, practical and clinical significance. In addition, this study attempted to present the most known methods to estimate the clinical significance of psychological and educational studies. These methods were Jacobson-Truax method (JT), GulliksenLord - Novick method (GLN), Edwards-Nunnally method (EN), Hageman-Arrindell method (HA), and Hierarchical Linear Method (HLM). The current study constraints on the Jacobson-Truax method (JT) and via using hypothetical data, psychological and educational examples were presented to explain how to implement JT method. Moreover, via applying JT method this study attempted to introduce a suggested model to investigate the clinical significance of the treatment on the differences among the groups of the experimental designs. Finally, the results of this study confirmed the value of investigating the clinical significance of the psychological and educational studies because the results could be statistically and practically significant although could not indicate to clinical significance either on the individual or groups level.