Multiple Comparisons (3 of 3)

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There is room for argument, however, about whether it should be strictly controlled, or whether it should be allowed to rise slightly.

One consideration is the definition of a family of comparisons. Let's say you conducted a study in which you were interested in whether there was a difference between male and female babies in the age at which they started crawling. After you finished analyzing the data, a colleague of yours had a totally different research question: Do babies who are born in the winter differ from those born in the summer in the age they start crawling? Should the EER be controlled or should it be allowed to be greater than 0.05? A compelling argument can be made that there is no reason you should be penalized (by lower power) just because your colleague used the same data to address a different research question.


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