p value

This term is a technical statistic used primarily in hypothesis testing to determine whether an observed effect is likely due to chance. It carries a neutral, scientific register and is almost exclusively found in academic papers, clinical trial reports, and data analysis contexts.

Users should be cautious not to confuse a low p value with the magnitude of an effect; a result can be statistically significant without being practically meaningful. In professional discourse, it is frequently paired with a significance level, typically denoted as alpha, to decide whether to reject a null hypothesis.