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Confidence Intervals

The document discusses confidence intervals (CIs) for estimating population means, emphasizing their importance in statistical analysis and the implications of sample size and variability. A confidence interval provides a range of values that likely contains the true population parameter, with a specified level of confidence, such as 95%. It also illustrates how to calculate CIs using sample data and highlights their role in interpreting statistical significance.

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7 views28 pages

Confidence Intervals

The document discusses confidence intervals (CIs) for estimating population means, emphasizing their importance in statistical analysis and the implications of sample size and variability. A confidence interval provides a range of values that likely contains the true population parameter, with a specified level of confidence, such as 95%. It also illustrates how to calculate CIs using sample data and highlights their role in interpreting statistical significance.

Uploaded by

sylvester.nwabueze
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Confidence Intervals

Confidence Intervals about a


Population Mean,  Known
BACKGROUND
---Statistical analysis of medical studies
is based on the key idea that, we make
observations on a sample of subjects
from which the sample is drawn.
---If the sample is not representative of
the population we may well be misled
and statistical procedures cannot help.
.
---Even a well designed study can give
only an idea of the answer sought ,
because of random variation in the
sample.
---And the results from a single sample
are subject to statistical uncertainty,
which is strongly related to the size of
the sample.
-- The quantities( single mean,
proportion, difference in means,
proportions, OR, RR, Correlation etc)
will be imprecise estimate of the
values in the overall population, but
fortunately the imprecision can itself
be estimated and incorporated into
the presentation of findings.
--- Presenting study findings directly on the scale
of original measurement together with
information on the inherent imprecision due to
sampling variability, has distinct advantages
over just giving ‘p-values’ usually dichotomized
into “significant” or “non-significant”.

“THIS IS THE RATIONALE FOR


USING CI”
A point estimate of a parameter is
the value of a statistic that estimates
the value of the parameter.
A confidence interval estimate of a
parameter consists of an interval of
numbers along with a probability that the
interval contains the unknown parameter.

The level of confidence in a confidence


interval is a probability that represents the
percentage of intervals that will contain if a
large number of repeated samples are
obtained. The level of confidence is denoted
For example, a 95% level of confidence
would mean that if 100 confidence
intervals were constructed, each based
on a different sample from the same
population, we would expect 95 of the
intervals to contain the population
mean.
Different Interpretations of the 95% confidence
interval
• “We are 95% sure that the TRUE parameter
value is in the 95% confidence interval”

• “If we repeated the experiment many times,


95% of the time the TRUE parameter value
would be in the interval”

• “Before performing the experiment, the


probability that the interval would contain the
true parameter value was 0.95.”
The construction of a confidence
interval for the population mean
depends upon three factors

 The point estimate of the population


 The level of confidence
 The standard deviation of the sample
mean
Suppose we obtain a simple random sample
from a population. Provided that the
population is normally distributed or the
sample size is large, the distribution of the
sample mean will be normal with
95% of all sample means are in the
interval

With a little algebraic manipulation, we


can rewrite this inequality and obtain:
C.I. (degree of Z -value
confidence)

90% 1.64

95% 1.96

98% 2.33

99% 2.58
-- In a representative sample of 100 observations of heights
of men, drawn at random from a large population,
suppose the sample mean is found to be 175 cm
(sd=10cm) .
-- Can we make any statements about the population mean
?
-- We cannot say that population mean is 175 cm because
we are uncertain as to how much sampling fluctuation
has occurred.
-- What we do instead is to determine a range of possible
values for the population mean, with 95% degree of
confidence.
-- This range is called the 95% confidence interval and can
be an important adjuvant to a significance test.
• In general, the 95% confidence interval is given by:
Statistic ± confidence factor x S.Error of statistic

In the previous example, n =100 ,sample mean = 175, S.D.,


=10, and the S.Error =10/√100 = 1.

Therefore, the 95% confidence interval is,


175 ± 1.96 * 1 = 173 to 177”
That is, if numerous random sample of size 100 are drawn
and the 95% confidence interval is computed for each
sample, the population mean will be within the computed
intervals in 95% of the instances.
Example: Testing and CIs
Illustration: Test H0: μ = 180

Reject H0 at α =.05
Retain H0 at α =.01

This CI excludes 180


This CI includes 180
3/6/2025Basic Biostat 24
Sampling Distributions

n = 25 n = 50

0 5 10 15 20 25
0 5 10 15
sem = 0.47 sem = 0.23

2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.02.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
s a mp s s a mp s

n = 100
n = 500
0 10 20 30

sem = 0.17
0 5 10 15 20 sem = 0.10

2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.02.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
s a mp s s a mp s
• In a descriptive study, the mean is 220 and
the standard error is 10, the 95% confidence
limits would be:
a. 210 to 230
b. 215 to 225
c. 200 to 240
d. 220 to 230
• A z score of 0 corresponds to the:
a. Mean
b. Median
c. Interquartile range
d. 75th percentile
• A mean hemoglobin level of 100 women in
a population sample is 12g/dL with a
standard deviation of 2. The confidence
interval for the population mean would be:
a. 10.4 – 11.6
b. 11.6 – 12.4
c. 12.4 – 13.6
d. 13.6 – 14.4

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