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7-Confidence Interval

The document discusses confidence intervals for estimating population means. It explains that a confidence interval provides a range of values that is likely to contain the unknown population parameter, compared to a point estimate that only gives a single value. It also discusses how confidence intervals are constructed, including using sample means and standard deviations to estimate population parameters when the population standard deviation is known or unknown. Confidence intervals provide a level of confidence such as 95% that the population parameter falls within the calculated interval.

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Karazay
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77 views15 pages

7-Confidence Interval

The document discusses confidence intervals for estimating population means. It explains that a confidence interval provides a range of values that is likely to contain the unknown population parameter, compared to a point estimate that only gives a single value. It also discusses how confidence intervals are constructed, including using sample means and standard deviations to estimate population parameters when the population standard deviation is known or unknown. Confidence intervals provide a level of confidence such as 95% that the population parameter falls within the calculated interval.

Uploaded by

Karazay
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Estimation and

Confidence Intervals
CONFIDENCE INTERVALS FOR
A POPULATION MEAN

• The sample’s mean is a point estimate of the unknown population mean. A more informative approach is to
present a range of values where we expect the population parameter to occur. Such a range of values is
called a confidence interval.
• A point estimate, however, tells only part of the story. While we expect the point estimate to be close to the
population parameter, we would like to measure how close it really is. A confidence interval serves this
purpose.

• For example, we estimate the mean yearly income for construction workers in the New York–New Jersey
area is $85,000. The range of this estimate might be from $81,000 to $89,000. We can describe how
confident we are that the population parameter is in the interval. We might say, for instance, that we are
90% confident that the mean yearly income of construction workers in the New York–New Jersey area is
between $81,000 and $89,000.
• CONFIDENCE INTERVAL A range of values constructed from sample data so that the population parameter is
likely to occur within that range at a specified probability. The specified probability is called the level of
confidence.

• To compute a confidence interval for a population mean, we will consider two situations:
• We use sample data to estimate μ with x and the population standard deviation (σ) is known.
• We use sample data to estimate μ with x and the population standard deviation is unknown. In this case, we
substitute the sample standard deviation (s) for the population standard deviation (σ).

• These confidence interval statements provide examples of levels of confidence and are called a 95%
confidence interval and a 90% confidence interval. The 95% and 90% are the levels of confidence and refer
to the percentage of similarly constructed intervals that would include the parameter being estimated—in
this case, μ, the population mean
Population Standard Deviation, σ Unknown

• in most sampling situations the population standard deviation (σ) is not known
• allows us to use the normal probability distribution to create confidence intervals for the population mean
and perform tests of hypothesis
Mean
Dispersion
• When we calculate the variance, the unit of measure for the variance is citations squared. Using “squared
citations” as a unit of measure is cumbersome.
• There is a way out of this difficulty. By taking the square root of the population variance,we can transform it
to the same unit of measurement used for the original data
p-VALUE IN HYPOTHESIS TESTING

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