Activity: Understanding Confidence Intervals
(0)In this activity, students construct their own confidence intervals, which demonstrate the concept of a confidence level, and allow them to see how confidence intervals vary from sample to sample.
Prerequisite Knowledge
- Appreciate that the sample mean and sample standard deviation give some information about the population
- Understand a population parameter is fixed, not random
- (Optional) Know how to find the appropriate value of t using software or a t-table given a confidence level
Learning Objectives
- Explain why confidence intervals vary from sample to sample
- Recognize that a given confidence interval either does or does not include the population parameter
- Recognize that the confidence level equals the expected proportion of samples that yield confidence intervals which include the true value
Description
This activity seeks to improve comprehension of confidence intervals via direct experience. In this activity, students construct a random sample using data supplied by the instructor and use this sample to construct a confidence interval. They then compare their confidence interval with those of the rest of the class, making conclusions on what they observe.
Suggested Uses, Tips and Discoveries
This activity can be used either as an introduction of confidence intervals or as a means to improve understanding after confidence intervals are first presented in lectures, readings, etc. It can be completed within 30 minutes. The activity must be carried out in a group, as students will be asked to compare results. The activity works best when at least 50 confidence intervals are constructed. This can be done in a class of at least 50 students with each student constructing one interval, or in smaller classes with each student constructing multiple intervals.
This activity contains the following files:
- “Meta-instruction": Detailed instructions for the instructor, to refer to when using this activity.
- “Powerpoint slides”: Lecture slides.
- "Students exercise sheet": Exercise sheet for students to work on in class, including data.
- "Students pre-reading": Pre-reading for students, including a different dataset.
- "Data collection" (optional): Instructions for the instructor to collect data from the class for use in the activity if desired.
Instructors should begin by referring to the file "Meta-instruction" for detailed instructions on using this activity.
The files "Powerpoint slides" and "Students pre-reading" contain several fields marked in red, where the instructor should input information pertaining to the dataset they wish to use.
The file "Students exercise sheet" has been provided in both .doc and .pdf formats, in case the instructor wishes to make changes to the worksheet.
Creator
- Owen, Andrew
- Leung, Andy
- Cutler, Fred
- Yu, Eugenia
- Lee, Melissa
- Isberg, Sonja
Resource Type
Date Approved
Access
Everyone
Image
Exercise sheet for students to work on in class, including data
.docx version of Students Exercise sheet
Pre-reading for students, including a different dataset
Instructions for the instructor to collect data from the class for use in the activity, if desired
https://statspace.elearning.ubc.ca/handle/123456789/327
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