Exam 8: Confidence Interval Estimation

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?

The confidence interval obtained will always correctly estimate the population parameter.

TABLE 8-11 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 8-11, the parameter of interest is the total number of students in the population who feel comfortable reporting cheating by their fellow students.

Holding the sample size fixed, increasing the level of confidence in a confidence interval will necessarily lead to a wider confidence interval.

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. -The head of a computer science department is interested in estimating the proportion of students entering the department who will choose the new computer engineering option. A preliminary sample indicates that the proportion will be around 0.25. Therefore, what size sample should the department head take if she wants to be 95% confident that the estimate is within 0.10 of the true proportion?

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, the parameter of interest is the proportion of the rooms rented daily in a given month.

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. Summary statistics yield X = 180.975 and S = 143.042 . Calculate a 95% confidence interval for the mean endowment of all the private colleges in the United States assuming a normal distribution for the endowments.

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.

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 all confidence intervals constructed similarly to this one with a sample size of 10 will contain the mean of the population.

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, a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of the student population who own a personal computer is narrower than a 99% confidence interval.

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, it is possible that the 99% confidence interval calculated from the data will not contain the sample mean number of rooms rented daily in a given month.

TABLE 8-11 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 8-11, a 90% confidence interval calculated from the same data would be narrower than a 99% confidence interval.

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, the superintendent can conclude with 95% level of confidence that no more than 5% of the students in the unified school district skipped more than 10 days of school last year.

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, X = 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?

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

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, 95% of the time, the sample proportion of people that recognize the product will fall between 0.36 and 0.54.

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 time, the sample mean salary offer to management majors will fall between 47.19 and 52.61.

TABLE 8-3 To become an actuary, it is necessary to pass a series of 10 exams, including the most important one, an exam in probability and statistics. An insurance company wants to estimate the mean score on this exam for actuarial students who have enrolled in a special study program. They take a sample of 8 actuarial students in this program and determine that their scores are: 2, 5, 8, 8, 7, 6, 5, and 7. This sample will be used to calculate a 90% confidence interval for the mean score for actuarial students in the special study program. -Referring to Table 8-3, a 90% confidence interval for the mean score of actuarial students in the special program is from ________ to ________.

TABLE 8-13 A sales and marketing management magazine conducted a survey of salespeople cheating on their expense reports and other unethical conduct. In the survey of 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 8-13, construct a 95% confidence interval estimate of the population proportion of managers who have caught salespeople giving a kickback to a customer.

A major department store chain is interested in estimating the mean amount its credit card customers spent on their first visit to the chain's new store in the mall. Fifteen credit card accounts were randomly sampled and analyzed with the following results: X = $50.50 and S = 20. Construct a 95% confidence interval for the mean amount its credit card customers spent on their first visit to the chain's new store in the mall assuming that the amount spent follows a normal distribution.