Is a small scientific study better than none at all? A
provocative piece in Frontiers in Psychology
raises the question of whether we should ever do under-powered studies. The authors are Dutch researchers Rik Crutzen and Gjalt-Jorn Y. Peters.
Crutzen and Peters begin by questioning the idea that even a little evidence is always valuable. Taking the example of a study that only manages to recruit a handful of patients because it's studying a rare disease, the authors say that:
Underpowered studies are often unable to contribute to in fact answer research questions... sometimes, the more virtuous decision is to decide that current means do not allow studying the research question at hand.
What about preliminary or pilot studies, which are often small? Crutzen and Peters say that small pilot studies are useful for checking that a research method works and is feasible, but that we shouldn't rely on the ...
