MATH 1131 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Bias Of An Estimator, Confidence Interval, Statistical Parameter
13 Dec 2016
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Sc/math 1131- lecture 9- confidence intervals based on a single sample. A single value of a statistic computed from a sample conveys little information about confidence and reliability. Alternative method: use a single value to construct an interval in which we are fairly certain the true value lies. A point estimate of a population parameter is a single number computed from a sample, which serves as a best guess for the parameter: an estimator is a statistic of interest, and is therefore a random variable. An estimator has a distribution, a mean, a variance, and a standard deviation: an estimate is a specific value of an estimator. If there are several unbiased statistics from which to choose, select the one with the smallest possible variance. An unbiased statistic that has the smallest possible variance is called the minimum-variance unbiased estimator (mvue).
