Explorations in statistics: confidence intervals

Curran-Everett D. Explorations in statistics: confidence intervals. Adv Physiol Educ 33: 87-90, 2009; doi: 10.1152/advan.00006.2009.-Learning about statistics is a lot like learning about science: the learning is more meaningful if you can actively explore. This third installment of Explorations in Statistics investigates confidence intervals. A confidence interval is a range that we expect, with some level of confidence, to include the true value of a population parameter such as the mean. A confidence interval provides the same statistical information as the P value from a hypothesis test, but it circumvents the drawbacks of that hypothesis test. Even more important, a confidence interval focuses our attention on the scientific importance of some experimental result.