Chapter 9: Problem 44
During a national debate on changes to health care, a cable news service performs an opinion poll of 500 small-business owners. It shows that \(65 \%\) of small-business owners do not approve of the changes. Develop a \(95 \%\) confidence interval for the proportion opposing health care changes. Comment on the result.
Short Answer
Step by step solution
Identify the Sample Proportion
Determine the Sample Size
Find the Z-Score for Confidence Level
Calculate the Standard Error
Compute the Standard Error
Calculate the Margin of Error
Determine the Confidence Interval
Comment on the Result
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Key Concepts
These are the key concepts you need to understand to accurately answer the question.
Sample Proportion
The sample proportion is denoted as \(\hat{p}\). It's simply the number of favorable responses divided by the total number of responses. For instance, if 325 out of 500 small-business owners oppose the changes, then \(\hat{p} = \frac{325}{500} = 0.65\) or 65%.
- It's a point estimate of the true population proportion.
- Helps in making predictions about the entire population based on a sample.
Standard Error
To calculate the standard error of a sample proportion, we use the formula:\[\text{SE} = \sqrt{\frac{\hat{p}(1-\hat{p})}{n}}.\]For our example with \(\hat{p} = 0.65\) and sample size \(n = 500\), the standard error can be calculated to be approximately 0.0213.
- Smaller standard errors indicate more precise estimates.
- It decreases as the sample size increases, reflecting less variability in larger samples.
Margin of Error
We use this equation to find the margin of error:\[\text{ME} = Z \times \text{SE}.\]Given a 95% confidence level (with a Z-score of 1.96) and a standard error of 0.0213 in our problem, the margin of error is approximately 0.0417. This means that we expect the true population proportion to fall within 4.17% of our sample proportion.
- Reflects the extent of uncertainty around the sample estimate.
- Larger margins of error suggest less precision, while smaller margins indicate more confidence in the estimate.
Z-score
In the context of confidence intervals, the Z-score translates the confidence level into a critical value. For common confidence levels:
- 90% confidence level has a Z-score of 1.645.
- 95% confidence level corresponds to a Z-score of 1.96.
- 99% confidence level has a Z-score of 2.576.