这一章讲的是:怎么用 interval estimate 来找到整体平均值和整体比例的区间
The general form of interval estimate of a population mean is x̅ ± Margin of error
The general form of interval estimate of a population proportion is p̄ ± Margin of error
8.1 Population mean: σ known
假设 n = 100, σ = 20,那么就可以用这个来计算 σ(x̅) = σ/squareroot(n) = 2。因为根据 normal distribution, 95%的值都在±1.96 个 standard deviation of the mean,通过计算 ±1.96 * 2可以得到:95% of all x̅ values obtained using a sample size of n = 100 will be within 3.92 of the population mean μ。
得到这个图之后,我们可以随意抽3个 sample,n=100,计算他们的 x̅。可以得到下面的图:
Because 95% of all possible sample means are in the darkly shaded region, 95% of all intervals formed by subtracting 3.92 from x ̄ and adding 3.92 to x ̄ will include the population mean μ.
那么当最近这家公司随机采访了100个顾客,得到了一个 x̅ = 82, 用之前的结果可以得到 the specific interval estimate of μ based on the data from the most recent week is 82-3.92 = 78.08 to 82 + 3.92 = 85.92.
So 95% confident that the interval 78.08 to 85.92 includes the population mean μ.
The interval has been established at 95% confidence level.
The .95 is confidence coefficient, the interval 78.08 to 85.92 is 95% confidence interval.
In most applications, a sample size of n >= 30 is adequate when using expression (8.1) to develop an interval estimate of a population mean.
If the population is no