In everyday language 'significant' means important. In research however it often refers specifically to statistical significance – whether a result is unlikely enough that statistical tests show it is unlikely to be a chance effect at some level of confidence (e.g., 0.05 – i.e., that there is less than a 0.05% chance of the result being obtained by chance).
Testing for statistical significance is a key feature of experimental research, and, to avoid confusion, claims that a finding is 'significant' should be limited to those cases where testing shows a result is statistically significant.
