Where does significance collide?

In statistics, significance is a decision rule about sampling: a result is called statistically significant when its p-value falls below a chosen threshold, so that data this extreme would be unlikely if only chance were at work. Fisher's 1925 Statistical Methods for Research Workers popularised the convention of treating a probability of about 0.05 as the line past which a result deserves a second look. The referent is a probability computed against a null hypothesis, a property of the test and the sample size, and it says nothing on its own about how large, how meaningful, or how important the underlying effect is.[1]

Unit

A p-value judged against a fixed threshold, such as 0.05

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Computed as the probability of data at least as extreme under the null hypothesis, then compared to the chosen alpha level

In semiotics and linguistics, signification is the meaning a sign carries: the relation by which a signifier, a spoken or written form, is bound to a signified, the concept it calls up, so that the sign means something to those who read it. Saussure's Course in General Linguistics set out this pairing and argued that the link between form and concept is arbitrary and held in place by convention within a language. The referent is a semantic relation inside a system of signs, studied by how meaning is produced and understood, and it has nothing to do with a probability threshold, an effect size, or the worth of a thing.[2]

Unit

The meaning bound to a sign within a language, described qualitatively

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Analysed by interpreting how a signifier is paired with a signified and how that meaning holds across a community of speakers

In research methodology, practical or substantive significance is whether a finding is large enough to matter in the world, judged by the size of an effect and its bearing on decisions, and it is kept deliberately apart from statistical significance. Kirk's 1996 Practical Significance: A Concept Whose Time Has Come argued that a small p-value can sit beside a trivial effect, and urged researchers to report effect sizes and ask whether a result is important, not merely detectable. The referent is a judgement about magnitude and real-world consequence, not a probability computed against a null hypothesis, and a result can be statistically significant yet practically negligible.[3]

Unit

The magnitude and real-world importance of an effect, often gauged by an effect size

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed by effect-size estimates, confidence intervals, and judgement about whether the magnitude matters for practice

In philosophy, significance is the importance or mattering of something: the meaning in which an act, a life, or an event is worth caring about, weighed against what a person values rather than against a statistical baseline. Wolf's 2010 Meaning in Life and Why It Matters treated this kind of significance as arising where subjective engagement meets objective worth, so that a life matters in a way its owner has reason to endorse. The referent is a normative question about worth and mattering, argued rather than measured, and it is unrelated to a p-value, to the meaning of a sign, or to the size of a measured effect.[4]

Unit

The worth or mattering of something, argued rather than counted

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Not measured but argued, by weighing what makes an act or a life worth caring about