Confidence interval: Encyclopedia II - Confidence interval - Confidence intervals for proportions and related quantities

Confidence interval - Confidence intervals for proportions and related quantities

An approximate confidence interval for a population mean can be constructed for random variables that are not normally distributed in the population, relying on the central limit theorem, if the sample sizes and counts are big enough. The formulae are identical to the case above (where the sample mean is actually normally distributed about the population mean). The approximation will be quite good with only a few dozen observations in the sample if the probability distribution of the random variable is not too different from the normal distribution (e.g. its cumulative distribution function does not have any discontinuities and its skewness is moderate).

One type of sample mean is the mean of an indicator variable, which takes on the value 1 for true and the value 0 for false. (Statisticians often call indicator variables "dummy variables", but that term is also frequently used by mathematicians for the concept of a bound variable.) The mean of such a variable is equal to the proportion that have the variable equal to one (both in the population and in any sample). Thus, the sample mean for a variable labeled MALE in data is just the proportion of sampled observations who have MALE = 1, i.e. the proportion who are male. This is a useful property of indicator variables, especially for hypothesis testing.

To apply the central limit theorem, one must use a large enough sample. A rough rule of thumb is that one should see at least 5 cases in which the indicator is 1 and at least 5 in which it is 0. Confidence intervals constructed using the above formulae may include negative numbers or numbers greater than 1, but proportions obviously cannot be negative or exceed 1. The probability assigned to negative numbers and numbers greater than 1 is usually small when the sample size is large and the proportion being estimated is not too close to 0 or 1.

Confidence intervals for cases where the method above assigns a substantial probability to (−∞, 0) or to (1, ∞) may be constructed by inverting hypothesis tests. If we think of conducting hypothesis tests over the whole feasible range of parameter values, and including any values for which a single hypothesis test would not reject the null hypothesis that the true value was that value, given our sample value, we can make a confidence interval based on the central limit theorem that does not violate the basic properties of proportions.

On the other hand, sample proportions can only take on a finite number of values, so the central limit theorem and the normal distribution are not the best tools for building a confidence interval. A better method would rely on the binomial distribution or the beta distribution, and there are a number of better methods in widespread use. For details on advantages and disadvantages of each, see:

• "Interval Estimation for a Binomial Proportion", Lawrence D. Brown, T. Tony Cai, Anirban DasGupta, Statistical Science, volume 16, number 2 (May, 2001), pages 101-117.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Confidence intervals for proportions and related quantities", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki