On the poor statistical properties of the p-curve meta-analytic procedure

Morey, Richard D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9220-3179 and Davis-Stober, Clintin 2025. On the poor statistical properties of the p-curve meta-analytic procedure. Journal of the American Statistical Association 10.1080/01621459.2025.2544397

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Abstract

The P -curve (Simonsohn, Nelson, & Simmons, 2014; Simonsohn, Simmons, & Nelson, 2015) is a widely-used suite of meta-analytic tests advertised for detecting problems in sets of studies. They are based on nonparametric combinations of p values (e.g., Marden, 1985) across significant (p<.05) studies and are variously claimed to detect “evidential value”, “lack of evidential value”, and “left skew” in p values. We show that these tests do not have the properties ascribed to them. Moreover, they fail basic desiderata for tests, including admissibility and monotonicity. In light of these serious problems, we recommend against the use of the P -curve tests.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Psychology
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
ISSN:	1537-274X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	4 August 2025
Date of Acceptance:	24 July 2025
Last Modified:	01 Dec 2025 16:48
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/180224

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