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It is usually determined on the basis of the cost, time or convenience of data collection and the need for sufficient statistical power. For example, if a proportion is being estimated, one may wish to have the 95% confidence interval be less than 0.06 units wide. Alternatively, sample size may be assessed based on the power of a hypothesis ...
Factors affecting the width of the CI include the sample size, the variability in the sample, and the confidence level. [2] All else being the same, a larger sample produces a narrower confidence interval, greater variability in the sample produces a wider confidence interval, and a higher confidence level produces a wider confidence interval. [3]
When working with small sample sizes (i.e., less than 50), the basic / reversed percentile and percentile confidence intervals for (for example) the variance statistic will be too narrow. So that with a sample of 20 points, 90% confidence interval will include the true variance only 78% of the time. [44]
An example of the relationship between sample size and power levels. Higher power requires larger sample sizes. Statistical power may depend on a number of factors. Some factors may be particular to a specific testing situation, but in normal use, power depends on the following three aspects that can be potentially controlled by the practitioner:
For a confidence level, there is a corresponding confidence interval about the mean , that is, the interval [, +] within which values of should fall with probability . Precise values of z γ {\displaystyle z_{\gamma }} are given by the quantile function of the normal distribution (which the 68–95–99.7 rule approximates).
Using Bayesian statistics can avoid confidence levels, but also requires making additional assumptions, [57] and may not necessarily improve practice regarding statistical testing. [58] The widespread abuse of statistical significance represents an important topic of research in metascience. [59]
Confidence intervals behave in a predictable way. By definition, 95% confidence intervals have a 95% chance of covering the underlying population mean (μ). This feature remains constant with increasing sample size; what changes is that the interval becomes smaller.
In statistics, interval estimation is the use of sample data to estimate an interval of possible values of a parameter of interest. This is in contrast to point estimation, which gives a single value. [1] The most prevalent forms of interval estimation are confidence intervals (a frequentist method) and credible intervals (a Bayesian method). [2]