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Statistics vocabulary · Estimation and Inference

Confidence interval

Meaning in statistics, with examples

nounCore term

In statistics, confidence interval means: A range of values, calculated from sample data, that is likely to contain the true population value; a 95% interval comes from a method that captures the true value in 95% of repeated samples.

In Turkish: güven aralığı

How it is used

Abbreviated CI and often reported in square brackets: 'mean difference 4.2, 95% CI [1.8, 6.6]'. Many journals now expect confidence intervals alongside or instead of p-values. A narrow interval means a precise estimate; a wide one signals uncertainty.

Example sentences

  1. The 95% confidence interval for the mean saving runs from €31 to €53.

  2. The confidence interval is wide because we only had 40 participants.

Common collocations

  • 95% confidence interval
  • narrow confidence interval
  • calculate a confidence interval
  • the interval includes zero
  • margin of errorThe amount added to and subtracted from an estimate to form a confidence interval, showing how far the sample result may differ from the true population value.
  • point estimateA single number calculated from sample data as the best guess of a population value, for example a sample mean of 4.7 used to estimate the true mean.
  • standard errorThe standard deviation of an estimate, such as a sample mean, across repeated samples; it shows how precise the estimate is likely to be.
  • estimateTo calculate an approximate value for an unknown population quantity, such as a mean, a proportion or a regression coefficient, from sample data.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Estimation and Inference

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