Chapter 9

Estimation and Confidence Intervals

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After studying this chapter, you should be able to

  • understand the concept of a confidence interval.

  • compute the margin of error associated with a sample mean and a proportion.

  • compute and interpret confidence interval estimates to know the precision of the estimate of a population mean and proportion.

  • identify factors that affect the precision of confidence intervals.

  • determine the sample sizes for different levels of precision.

Lest men suspect your tale untrue, keep probability in view.

—John Gay

When in doubt use a bigger hammer.

—Thomas L. Martin Jr.

9.1 INTRODUCTION

In Chapter 8, we have learnt how to use a sample data to draw statistical inference about the unknown ...

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