Decisions about alpha level may be different, especially as itrelates from hard sciences to social sciences. For example, amedical trial for cancer treatments conducts their statisticaltests at .0001 – so for every 1 out of 10,000 patients, there maybe issues, sickness or even death. For social science, we use alpha.05. We are comfortable with performing research, for example, onstudents. So we are satisfied with losing 5 out of 100 students orhaving our results being incorrect 5 out of 100 times. Do you agreewith these alpha levels? Why or why not? What if your child’seducation and the teacher assigned to him/her would be successful95 out of 100 times?
