Statistical significance

Statistical significance is a statistical assessment of whether observations reflect a pattern rather than just chance, the fundamental challenge being that any partial picture is subject to random error. In statistical testing, a result is deemed statistically significant if that result is sufficiently extremee that, without an underlying effect, would be expected to arise by chance only rarely, and hence provides enough evidence to reject the hypothesis of 'no effect'. As used in statistics, significant does not mean important or meaningful, as it does in everyday speech.