An operational definition of a statistically meaningful trend

Abstract

Linear trend analysis of time series is standard procedure in many scientific disciplines. If the number of data is large, a trend may be statistically significant even if data are scattered far from the trend line. This study introduces and tests a quality criterion for time trends referred to as statistical meaningfulness, which is a stricter quality criterion for trends than high statistical significance. The time series is divided into intervals and interval mean values are calculated. Thereafter, r(2) and p values are calculated from regressions concerning time and interval mean values. If r(2)>= 0.65 at p

Published in

PLoS ONE
2011, volume: 6, number: 4, article number: e19241

SLU Authors

• Bryhn, Andreas

  • Uppsala University

UKÄ Subject classification

Probability Theory and Statistics

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0019241

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/84296