Steve Tippins explains what dissertation committees actually care about: practical significance, not just statistical significance. A finding from one person out of eight tells you almost nothing about a real population.
Practical significance is what your committee is really interested in. Is the size of the effect big enough to really matter in life, or in financial matters, or in performance matters, or in whatever we are measuring? We could have a difference that turns out to be real, but it's trivial. I've seen students, undergraduate students in particular, report, "Oh, well, 12.5% of the people believe this," and it was 1 out of 8. So, we're taking 1 and saying, "Yes, 1 out of 8 people believe this." 1/8 is 12.5%. But when we bring it into the real world and say 12.5% of people and try to extrapolate out, you're implying levels of accuracy that you don't have. Drop the word help in the comments and I'll send you the link for my free dissertation help community.
