Now What?: I’ve Found Nothing Steve Werner Department of Management Bauer College of Business University of Houston

Overview So What? Re-evaluate your data Re-evaluate your measures Re-evaluate your analyses Re-evaluate your sample Re-evaluate your study design Re-evaluate your hypotheses Re-evaluate your theory Conclusion

So What? Publication bias against no results. Something’s wrong. Bias against null hypotheses (well-deserved).

Re-evaluate Your Data Look for entry errors. Look for non-normality. Look for outliers. Look for excessive missing data. Look for suspicious patterns.

Re-evaluate Your Measures Look at reliability: a. errors in reverse scoring. b. bad items. c. too few items. Look at the dimensionality of the measure. Look at combining measures. Look at difference score measures. Look at single item measures. Consider new measures, variables, and constructs.

Re-evaluate Your Analyses Over-specified model? Under-specified model? Suppressor variables? Multi-collinearity? Consider different techniques.

Re-evaluate Your Sample Look at sub-samples. Range restriction? Consider increasing sample size.

Re-evaluate Your Study Design Do a power analysis Increase sample size Relax alpha 1-tailed significance tests Any way to reduce error variance?

Re-evaluate Your Hypotheses Consider rewording hypotheses to make testing easier. Consider moderator hypotheses. Eliminate main effect hypotheses. Consider mediator hypotheses.

Re-evaluate Your Theory Consider theory boundaries. Consider alternative theories. Consider theory limitations.

Conclusion So What? Re-evaluate your data Re-evaluate your measures Re-evaluate your analyses Re-evaluate your sample Re-evaluate your study design Re-evaluate your hypotheses Re-evaluate your theory Conclusion