Survey of statistical methods applied in articles published in Acta Scientiarum. Agronomy from 1998 to 2016

Abstract

Statistics is the main science by which researchers validate the results of scientific work, and the choice of an inadequate statistical method may lead to conclusions that are considered questionable by reviewers. This study had the objective of describing the characteristics of the statistical methods used in the papers published in Acta Scientiarum. Agronomy from 1998 to 2016 as part of a a critical analysis of the journal to pinpoint possible failures in the application of these methods. All scientific articles (n = 1,237) published in the journal were surveyed, of which 54.1% addressed areas of crop production. The mean comparison methods were the most commonly used (75.5%) and, consequently, they represented the highest proportion of errors (60.8%) of the authors in the journal.

Keywords

• statistical analysis
• comparison of means
• parametric methods