7.1 A single population mean using the normal distribution -- rrc  (Page 6/19)

References

“American Fact Finder.” U.S. Census Bureau. Available online at http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/searchresults.xhtml?refresh=t (accessed July 2, 2013).

“Disclosure Data Catalog: Candidate Summary Report 2012.” U.S. Federal Election Commission. Available online at http://www.fec.gov/data/index.jsp (accessed July 2, 2013).

“Headcount Enrollment Trends by Student Demographics Ten-Year Fall Trends to Most Recently Completed Fall.” Foothill De Anza Community College District. Available online at http://research.fhda.edu/factbook/FH_Demo_Trends/FoothillDemographicTrends.htm (accessed September 30,2013).

Kuczmarski, Robert J., Cynthia L. Ogden, Shumei S. Guo, Laurence M. Grummer-Strawn, Katherine M. Flegal, Zuguo Mei, Rong Wei, Lester R. Curtin, Alex F. Roche, Clifford L. Johnson. “2000 CDC Growth Charts for the United States: Methods and Development.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Available online at http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/2000growthchart-us.pdf (accessed July 2, 2013).

La, Lynn, Kent German. "Cell Phone Radiation Levels." c|net part of CBX Interactive Inc. Available online at http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phone-radiation-levels/ (accessed July 2, 2013).

“Mean Income in the Past 12 Months (in 2011 Inflaction-Adjusted Dollars): 2011 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates.” American Fact Finder, U.S. Census Bureau. Available online at http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_11_1YR_S1902&prodType=table (accessed July 2, 2013).

“Metadata Description of Candidate Summary File.” U.S. Federal Election Commission. Available online at http://www.fec.gov/finance/disclosure/metadata/metadataforcandidatesummary.shtml (accessed July 2, 2013).

“National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Available online at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes.htm (accessed July 2, 2013).

Chapter review

In this module, we learned how to calculate the confidence interval for a single population mean where the population standard deviation is known. When estimating a population mean, the margin of error is called the error bound for a population mean ( EBM ). A confidence interval has the general form:

(lower bound, upper bound) = (point estimate – EBM , point estimate + EBM )

The calculation of EBM depends on the size of the sample and the level of confidence desired. The confidence level is the percent of all possible samples that can be expected to include the true population parameter. As the confidence level increases, the corresponding EBM increases as well. As the sample size increases, the EBM decreases. By the central limit theorem,

$EBM=z\frac{\sigma }{\sqrt{n}}$

Given a confidence interval, you can work backwards to find the error bound ( EBM ) or the sample mean. To find the error bound, find the difference of the upper bound of the interval and the mean. If you do not know the sample mean, you can find the error bound by calculating half the difference of the upper and lower bounds. To find the sample mean given a confidence interval, find the difference of the upper bound and the error bound. If the error bound is unknown, then average the upper and lower bounds of the confidence interval to find the sample mean.