How to Increase the Size of the Confidence Interval

In statistics, the confidence interval is a measure of how good our estimates of some quantity are. For example, if we take a sample of adult males and weigh each, then the average of the sample is an estimate of the average of the population from which the sample was drawn. But how good is the guess? The confidence interval is one way to estimate this.

Note that a smaller confidence interval indicates a better estimate.

Instructions

    • 1

      Decrease the sample size. Other things being equal, a smaller sample will have a larger confidence interval (and a larger sample will have a smaller confidence interval).

    • 2

      Increase the proportion of the confidence interval. Confidence intervals are designed to cover a certain proportion of the population. Popular choices are 95% and 99%, but any percent can be used, from 1 to 99.99. Other things being equal, a 99% confidence interval will be larger than a 95% confidence interval.

    • 3

      Get poorer data. The confidence interval is also affected by the quality of your data. Worse data (that is, data that is less reliable or less accurately measured) will give larger confidence intervals than better data.

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