Current exploratory and confirmatory issues in data analysis in psychology

Abstract

In 1968 John Tukey gave a speech at the American Psychological Association in San Francisco about the relevance of proper data analysis in Psychology (Tukey, 1969). His closing message was that “data analysis needs to be both exploratory and confirmatory” (p. 90). Exploratory data analysis (or EDA) is an approach to analysing data in order to formulate sound hypotheses, whereas confirmatory data analysis (CDA) is a method to test those hypotheses (a.k.a., statistical hypothesis testing). As Tukey announced in his speech, these two analytical tools have been, and are somewhat still, at odds. This special issue presents sixteen papers that cover relevant topics in EDA and CDA with the purpose of bringing together seemingly disparate issues.