Exam 8: Confidence Interval Estimation

The difference between the sample proportion and the population proportion is called the sampling error.

SCENARIO 8-9 A university wanted to find out the percentage of students who felt comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students.A survey of 2,800 students was conducted and the students were asked if they felt comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students.The results were 1,344 answered "Yes" and 1,456 answered "no". -Referring to Scenario 8-9,a confidence interval estimate of the population proportion would only be valid if the distribution of the number of students who feel comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students is normal.

SCENARIO 8-9 A university wanted to find out the percentage of students who felt comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students.A survey of 2,800 students was conducted and the students were asked if they felt comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students.The results were 1,344 answered "Yes" and 1,456 answered "no". -Referring to Scenario 8-9,it is possible that the 99% confidence interval calculated from the data will not contain the sample proportion of students who feel comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students.

The head librarian at the Library of Congress has asked her assistant for an interval estimate of the mean number of books checked out each day.The assistant provides the following interval estimate: from 740 to 920 books per day.If the head librarian knows that the population standard deviation is 150 books checked out per day,approximately how large a sample did her assistant use to determine the interval estimate?

SCENARIO 8-8 The president of a university would like to estimate the proportion of the student population that owns a personal computer.In a sample of 500 students,417 own a personal computer. -Referring to Scenario 8-8,a confidence interval estimate of the population proportion would only be valid if the distribution of the number of students who own a personal computer is normal.

The head librarian at the Library of Congress has asked her assistant for an interval estimate of the mean number of books checked out each day.The assistant provides the following interval estimate: from 740 to 920 books per day.If the head librarian knows that the population standard deviation is 150 books checked out per day,and she asked her assistant to use 25 days of data to construct the interval estimate,what confidence level can she attach to the interval estimate?

SCENARIO 8-6 After an extensive advertising campaign,the manager of a company wants to estimate the proportion of potential customers that recognize a new product.She samples 120 potential consumers and finds that 54 recognize this product.She uses this sample information to obtain a 95% confidence interval that goes from 0.36 to 0.54. -Referring to Scenario 8-6,it is possible that the true proportion of people that recognize the product is between 0.36 and 0.54.

Private colleges and universities rely on money contributed by individuals and corporations for their operating expenses.Much of this money is put into a fund called an endowment,and the college spends only the interest earned by the fund.A recent survey of 8 private colleges in the United States revealed the following endowments (in millions of dollars): 60.2,47.0,235.1,490.0,122.6,177.5,95.4,and 220.0.What value will be used as the point estimate for the mean endowment of all private colleges in the United States?

SCENARIO 8-9 A university wanted to find out the percentage of students who felt comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students.A survey of 2,800 students was conducted and the students were asked if they felt comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students.The results were 1,344 answered "Yes" and 1,456 answered "no". -Referring to Scenario 8-9,the critical value for a 99% confidence interval for this sample is .