ALC Sept 23 9:03am

 explain the benefits and consequences of the “relaxed” level of significance.

As a scholarly reviewer, I express concern regarding the authors' decision to relax the traditional alpha level to .10 in their exploratory study. While exploratory research often seeks to identify potential patterns or generate hypotheses for future testing, the methodological justification for altering the statistical significance threshold must be grounded in rigorous reasoning and transparent reporting.

The footnote—"given this research was exploratory in nature, traditional levels of significance to reject the null hypotheses were relaxed to the .10 level"—raises several methodological and interpretive issues. First, relaxing the alpha level increases the probability of committing a Type I error, thereby elevating the risk of falsely rejecting the null hypothesis (Frankfort-Nachmias, Leon-Guerrero, & Davis, 2020). This is particularly problematic when the results are presented as making a "meaningful contribution to the literature," implying practical relevance that robust evidence may not substantiate.