Exam 8: Confidence Interval Estimation

TABLE 8-11 A sales and marketing management magazine conducted a survey on salespeople cheating on their expense reports and other unethical conduct. In the survey on 200 managers, 58% of the managers have caught salespeople cheating on an expense report, 50% have caught salespeople working a second job on company time, 22% have caught salespeople listing a "strip bar" as a restaurant on an expense report, and 19% have caught salespeople giving a kickback to a customer. -Referring to Table 8-11, construct a 95% confidence interval estimate of the population proportion of managers who have caught salespeople working a second job on company time.

As an aid to the establishment of personnel requirements, the director of a hospital wishes to estimate the mean number of people who are admitted to the emergency room during a 24-hour period. The director randomly selects 64 different 24-hour periods and determines the number of admissions for each. For this sample, = 19.8 and S² = 25. Using the sample standard deviation as an estimate for the population standard deviation, what size sample should the director choose if she wishes to estimate the mean number of admissions per 24-hour period to within 1 admission with 99% reliability,?

TABLE 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 Table 8-6, the parameter of interest to the manager is the proportion of potential customers in this sample that recognize the new product.

TABLE 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 Table 8-8, the sampling error of a 99% confidence interval for the proportion of the student population who own a personal computer is ________.

TABLE 8-7 A hotel chain wants to estimate the mean number of rooms rented daily in a given month. The population of rooms rented daily is assumed to be normally distributed for each month with a standard deviation of 24 rooms. During February, a sample of 25 days has a sample mean of 37 rooms. -Referring to Table 8-7, a 95% confidence interval for the mean number of rooms rented daily in a given month is narrower than a 99% confidence interval.

A population parameter is used to estimate a confidence interval.

When determining the sample size for a proportion for a given level of confidence and sampling error, the closer to 0.50 that π is estimated to be, the sample size required

TABLE 8-5 A sample of salary offers (in thousands of dollars) given to management majors is: 48, 51, 46, 52, 47, 48, 47, 50, 51, and 59. Using this data to obtain a 95% confidence interval resulted in an interval from 47.19 to 52.61. -Referring to Table 8-5, the confidence interval obtained is valid only if the distribution of the population of salary offers is normal.

TABLE 8-5 A sample of salary offers (in thousands of dollars) given to management majors is: 48, 51, 46, 52, 47, 48, 47, 50, 51, and 59. Using this data to obtain a 95% confidence interval resulted in an interval from 47.19 to 52.61. -Referring to Table 8-5, 95% of the sample means will fall between 47.19 and 52.61.

The t distribution approaches the standardized normal distribution when the number of degrees of freedom increases.

TABLE 8-7 A hotel chain wants to estimate the mean number of rooms rented daily in a given month. The population of rooms rented daily is assumed to be normally distributed for each month with a standard deviation of 24 rooms. During February, a sample of 25 days has a sample mean of 37 rooms. -Referring to Table 8-7, a 99% confidence interval will contain 99% of the sample mean number of rooms rented daily in a given month.

An economist is interested in studying the incomes of consumers in a particular country. The population standard deviation is known to be $1,000. A random sample of 50 individuals resulted in a mean income of $15,000. What total sample size would the economist need to use for a 95% confidence interval if the width of the interval should not be more than $100?

Suppose a 95% confidence interval for μ turns out to be (1,000, 2,100). Give a definition of what it means to be "95% confident" as an inference.

Other things being equal, as the confidence level for a confidence interval increases, the width of the interval increases.

TABLE 8-12 A poll was conducted by the marketing department of a video game company to determine the popularity of a new game that was targeted to be launched in three months. Telephone interviews with 1,500 young adults were conducted which revealed that 49% said they would purchase the new game. The margin of error was ±3 percentage points. -Referring to Table 8-12, what is the needed sample size to obtain a 99% confidence interval in estimating the percentage of the targeted young adults who will purchase the new game to within ±5% if you do not have the information on the 49% in the interviews who said that they would purchase the new game?

TABLE 8-2 A quality control engineer is interested in the mean length of sheet insulation being cut automatically by machine. The desired mean length of the insulation is 12 feet. It is known that the standard deviation in the cutting length is 0.15 feet. A sample of 70 cut sheets yields a mean length of 12.14 feet. This sample will be used to obtain a 99% confidence interval for the mean length cut by machine. -Referring to Table 8-2, the confidence interval is valid only if the lengths cut are normally distributed.

The difference between the upper limit of a confidence interval and the point estimate used in constructing the confidence interval is called the sampling error.

TABLE 8-10 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 Table 8-10, 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.

Suppose a department store wants to estimate the mean age of the customers of its contemporary apparel department, correct to within 2 years, with level of confidence equal to 95%. Management believes that the standard deviation is 8 years. The sample size they should take is ________.

TABLE 8-9 The superintendent of a unified school district of a small town wants to make sure that no more than 5% of the students skip more than 10 days of school in a year. A random sample of 145 students from a population of 800 showed that 12 students skipped more than 10 days of school last year. -Referring to Table 8-9, what is the critical value for the 95% one-sided confidence interval for the proportion of students who skipped more than 10 days of school last year?